Absolute Power: Lord of Time
by Chronos the Cat
Summary: When a future Robotnik who has mastered time travel sets out to get revenge on everyone who ever stood in his way, the Freedom Fighters find themselves fighting impossible odds with the fate of not just Mobius but the entire multiverse hanging in the balance. (Note: This is a separate continuity from my previous "Absolute Power" stories.)
1. Shadows of the Future

**Preface:**

In late 1998, I wrote a Sonic fanfic entitled "Absolute Power". Like all of my fanfics at the time, it was in "historical summary" form (much like the Silmarillion, but without the flowery language).

In early 1999 I revised Absolute Power, changing one section and adding in a new sub-plot. For many years I considered this the definitive version of Absolute Power.

In 2003 I began what I intended to be a detailed version of Absolute Power, however after a few chapters I grew dissatisfied with my work, and began to doubt the direction I was going in with the story, eventually leading to my abandoning it – but not before I posted what I'd written on Fanfiction dot net. (Currently the 2003 version is presented in two parts, "The Departure" and "The Visitor".)

For many years I wanted to share the full story of Absolute Power online, but as I fiddled with the plans the story kept getting more and more complex, and every attempt to fill in a plot hole created several more. I also began to worry that it had grown so long that it would take me years to write in detail even if I spent most of my free time on it.

Finally, I decided to go back to my 1999 version and do a new revision of that. I made a few plot changes, and added a few references to elements that had not been introduced to the mythos when I wrote the original version, but for the most part the focus of the revision was simply on updating the wording to something I felt good enough to share. This is that revision.

Because part of my goal was to get the story written as soon as I could, it's still in historical summary form; I haven't entirely given up on the idea of a detailed version, but that's a project for another day.

This story is set in the multiverse of the pre-reboot Archie Sonic comics, in a world similar to (but not the same as) Mobius Prime. I have tried to include enough information so that you don't have to be a die-hard fan to follow what's going on, but those who are familiar with early years of the comic, in particular issues 17 to 56 and the spin-off comics from that era, will get the most out of this story. (Those who do feel confident in their memory of early Archie Sonic may skip the section "The Story Thus Far" as there's nothing new there; simply scroll down to the start of Part I.)

Finally, a warning. This story gets pretty dark at times, and features a lot of character deaths.

* * *

 **Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Prelude: The Story Thus Far**

The planet Mobius was once a peaceful and happy place, until the Great War between the Mobian Alliance (led by the Kingdom of Acorn) and the Overlander Territories. Warlord Julian led the Acorn Kingdom to victory, but shortly afterwards, in the summer of 3224, he staged a coup. Taking the new name Dr. Robotnik, he renamed the capitol city from Mobotropolis to Robotropolis, exiled King Maximillian Acorn to the alternate reality known as the Zone of Silence, and eventually rounded up the population for roboticization - a process whereby living beings were transformed into mindless mechanical slaves. Robotnik turned Robotropolis into an industrial center, churning out war robots and other military machinery, and set out on a war of conquest with total world domination as his goal.

However, many resistance groups sprung up to oppose him, first in the Kingdom of Acorn and then in other lands as his influence spread. Among them were the Freedom Fighters of Knothole Village, the Wolf Pack, the Rebel Underground, and the Downunda Freedom Fighters.

By the year 3234, the Knothole Freedom Fighters had become the greatest thorn in Robotnik's side. Led by King Acorn's daughter Princess Sally, their numbers included Olgilvie Maurice "Sonic" Hedgehog, Rotor Walrus, Antoine DeCoolete, and Miles "Tails" Prower. Later that year they were joined by the half-roboticized Bunnie Rabbot, and by Dulcy the Dragon.

Other allies to the Freedom Fighters included Larry Lynx ("Super Jinx"), Cyril the Eagle, Knuckles the Echidna (Guardian of the Floating Island) and his friends (collectively known as "the Chaotix"), Sir Charles "Chuck" Hedgehog (Sonic's uncle, who was roboticized by Robotnik but regained his free will in a freak accident), and Princess Sally's trainees Arlo, Penelope, and Hamlin. Their most unusual ally however was the seemingly sentient handheld computer Nicole, who the Freedom Fighters discovered in a crater one day following a mysterious explosion; Nicole would never reveal where she came from or who built her, but she soon earned the Freedom Fighters' trust and was taken on most of their missions from then on.

In early 3235, the mercenary Nack the Weasel captured Sonic and turned him over to Robotnik. Robotnik roboticized Sonic, transforming him into an unstoppable weapon of war: Mecha Sonic. Robotnik sent Mecha Sonic to destroy Knothole Village and to kill or capture all within it. Outclassed by this new enemy, the Freedom Fighters called in Knuckles to help. Knuckles voluntarily accepted temporary roboticization (using one of Rotor's "Neuro-Overriders" to retain his free will) in order to combat Mecha Sonic, and in the end defeated him. The Freedom Fighters were then able to restore both Sonic and Knuckles to their flesh-and-blood forms.

STH * STH * STH

 **Part I: Shadows of the Future**

 _The Visitor_

Early in 3235, the Freedom Fighters were gathered in their Headquarters to plan a new attempt to rescue King Acorn from the Zone of Silence when suddenly, blue light shone from a point in the center of the room, so bright as to be blinding. When the light faded, standing there was a second Sonic.

The new Sonic appeared to be a young adult, though he claimed to be from several decades in the future. (When the Freedom Fighters protested that he didn't look all that much older than their Sonic, he replied, "I'm a lot older than I look.") He said that in the future Robotnik had acquired time travel, taken the name Chrono-nik, and crushed the resistance. Chrono-nik had then gone on to wipe out virtually all life on the planet. Sonic was not only the last surviving Freedom Fighter, he was the last intelligent being on the planet not enslaved to Chrono-nik.

Luckily, Sonic was able to steal a time machine from Chrono-nik's forces. He was now heading to 3224 to prevent Robotnik's coup, in the hopes of not only creating a better timeline, but erasing the time-traveling Chrono-nik from existence.

Even as dark as things had become, Sonic didn't want to assassinate "Warlord Julian"; instead he hoped to convince King Acorn to have Julian arrested before he could launch the coup. However, in order to convince the King that his top adviser was planning to usurp the throne, Sonic was going to need Sally's help.

The Freedom Fighters were a little skeptical of the Future Sonic at first, but once he had convinced them he really was Sonic (by listing off some things only Sonic would know), Sally was quite willing to go back in time with him. But then he revealed that he thought bringing Sally back with him would be too risky. For one thing he wasn't sure how time travel worked – for all he knew the timeline would split when they changed history, and the old history would continue on without either of them in it. For another, Chrono-nik always seemed to be one step ahead of him, so Sonic wouldn't be surprised if Chrono-nik already expected this move, and was ready for them. In either case, he didn't want to risk depriving this time period of Sally.

Instead, with her permission, Future Sonic intended to create a clone of Sally and copy Sally's memories into the clone. The clone could then come back to 3224 with him. When the bewildered Freedom Fighters asked how he planned to clone Sally and copy her memories, he was evasive, saying only that he had brought some "future tech" back with him that could do the job.

Deciding to continue to trust him, Sally agreed to Future Sonic's plan. Future Sonic took the Freedom Fighters out to a clearing in the woods, then told Sally to stand still. Future Sonic closed his eyes, then dirt and leaf litter rose up from the ground to take on a humanoid shape. Within a few seconds, the mass of dirt and leaves transformed into an exact duplicate of Sally. When Future Sonic told them all he was done, the copy Sally opened her eyes – and staring at the real Sally commented in surprise on how realistic her "duplicate" was.

The clone Sally was a bit dismayed when she was informed that she was in fact the duplicate, however she took heart in the fact that she would be the one to travel back in time with the Future Sonic and hopefully end Robotnik's reign before it began. Future Sonic and Clone Sally said goodbye to the Freedom Fighters, then Future Sonic took hold of Clone Sally, and they both vanished in a flash of blue light.

Unfortunately, the world remained as it had been – which Sally and Rotor informed the others meant that one way or another, Future Sonic's plans to change history via time travel had failed...

STH * STH * STH

 _The Mistress of Silence_

A few days later, Sonic, Sally, and the Rebel Underground leader Geoffrey St. John ventured into the Zone of Silence to rescue the King. They also carried with them a "Neutralizer" built by Rotor which he said ought to counter the effects of the Energy Inhibitor Robotnik had tricked them into using the last time they entered the Zone (Rotor predicted that if they did not use the Neutralizer, the damage caused by the Inhibitor would soon destroy the Zone and everyone in it). Unfortunately the last time they were in the Zone the King had not seemed to remember his own daughter and had treated them as enemies, and they had no reason to expect him to treat them any differently this time.

As they approached the heart of the disturbance, they were intercepted by King Acorn and his troops. This time he was also accompanied by a mysterious woman in a black mask and cape, whom King Acorn treated as a superior. She introduced herself as Lady Alice, second-in-command to the ruler of the Zone, Ixus Naugus. Lady Alice ordered them to surrender, and when they refused ordered "Lord Max" (as she called King Acorn) to take them alive for questioning.

Despite the forces arrayed against them, the Freedom Fighters triumphed. They took King Acorn captive, and forced Lady Alice to retreat. They then activated the Neutralizer and returned to Knothole with "Lord Max", who fell into unconsciousness as they exited the portal.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Quest for a Cure_

The Freedom Fighters took the King to Knothole's primary medical authority, Dr. Quack, in hopes he could help him recover. However it soon became apparent that the King was suffering from far worse than amnesia, as his body slowly began to turn to crystal. The only good news was that somehow the crystallized body parts remained fully mobile.

It was soon determined this was a magical malady, so Sally sent the Freedom Fighters out in search of Power Rings, as they were known to cure many mystical ailments. She sent Bunnie and Antoine to the Lake of Rings (a pool in the forest from which a Power Ring emerged once every day), while Sonic and Tails were to search the area around the "Power Ring Grotto" (a pond where a portal had once existed to a pocket zone filled with Power Rings and Chaos Emeralds).

However, Sonic and Tails arrived at the pond just in time to witness the leftover rings getting sucked up a giant tube into a giant egg-shaped object in the sky: the Death Egg, a giant floating fortress which when fully powered up with Rings and a Chaos Emerald would be able to roboticize the world. Sonic and Tails broke into the fortress and fought their way through it. After a brief tussle with the mechanical hedgehog Silver Sonic, Sonic confronted Robotnik, while Tails figured out how to set the Death Egg to blow up. Realizing he was defeated, Robotnik retreated. Sonic and Tails fled as well, grabbing some Power Rings on their way out. The Death Egg exploded shortly afterward.

The Rings the Freedom Fighters brought back to Knothole proved ineffective in helping the King, so they called Knuckles for help, hoping to borrow a Chaos Emerald. Knuckles reluctantly brought a spare Emerald with him to Knothole, but it's power also proved useless to cure the King. However, at this point Sir Charles and Sally, looking over old royal documents, determined that the mystical Crown and Sword of Acorns should be able to cure the King.

The Sword was the key to finding the Crown, but the Sword itself was missing. However, sympathetic to Sally's plight, Knuckles pledged to search out the Sword and return it to her.

Knuckles decided to start by searching out the god-like beings known as the Ancient Walkers; Tails offered to lead him to the crater in Downunda where Tails had last encountered both them and Knuckles' great-grandfather Athair. They traveled by sea in Tails' sub, the Sea Fox. At the crater they were granted a cryptic vision identifying various individuals who would be important to the quest for the Sword.

As the two walked back to the sub, they suddenly grew dizzy, and Tails fainted. A few minutes later, Tails woke up with a strange feeling that something which had always been there had been lost.

Meanwhile, in a hidden hut in the Great Forest, Tails' uncle Merlin Prower had a similar reaction. In a hidden fortress in the far north, the immortal Mammoth Mogul (who had been a powerful tyrant thousands of years ago) felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him. And elsewhere in Downunda, Athair was filled with not only a feeling of great loss but also dread, for if he understood the signs correctly, the beings he had devoted his life to serving, the world's greatest guardians, the Ancient Walkers, were gone...

STH * STH * STH

 _The Nightmare Zone_

Tails returned to Knothole to find that while he was gone the crystallization had continued to spread across the King's body, and that the King remained unresponsive to the world around him. Dr. Quack speculated that they might be able to at least heal the King's mind by using an experimental device of his – the "Dream Watcher". With it, one could enter into another person's dreams and subconscious, in order to help deal with nightmares and mental trauma.

Sonic, Sally, and Geoffrey St. John all volunteered to use the device, but in the end Sonic won the coin toss.

Shortly after lying down and donning a special helmet Dr. Quack provided, Sonic found himself in what looked like the Zone of Silence. He quickly figured out that the King was reliving his memories of his early times in the Zone. Sonic watched as the King and a woman who looked an awful lot like Sally (as a teenager no less) did battle with Warlord Kodos (the Acorn Kingdom's Warlord prior to Robotnik) and a being known as Feist. Sonic tried to get the King's attention, to let him know it was all memories and dreams, but the King didn't seem able to see or hear Sonic.

Then, a spectral image of Robotnik appeared in front of Sonic – only this "Robotnik" was pale blue, and completely robotic. This specter introduced himself as Chrono-nik, and explained that he had come back in time to get revenge on all those who had hindered his ultimate conquest of the world – and in particular Sonic himself. As the first step to that revenge, Chrono-nik had instructed one of his agents to sabotage the Dream Watcher to prevent Sonic from affecting the King's dreamscape, play this message for him, and then "help" Sonic recover a few of his own lost memories...

The next thing Sonic knew he was waking up in the roboticizer, his body now that of a robot designed for combat. He found himself a passenger in his own body as he broke out of the roboticizer and pledged his allegiance to Robotnik. Robotnik ordered Sonic to destroy Knothole Village, and Sonic flew out the window to do just that. As Sonic flew over Robotropolis he glanced down at the city and saw that it was still being rebuilt after the recent earthquake; from the level of reconstruction he realized that just as Chrono-nik had suggested this was a memory: a memory of his time as Mecha Sonic. Since being restored to flesh and blood, Sonic hadn't been able to remember his experiences as Mecha Sonic – and he had a bad feeling he was going to wish it had stayed that way.

It wasn't long before his mechanical memory-self reached the edges of the Great Forest. There Bunnie used her new flight systems to intercept him and do battle with him in the air. Bunnie put up a good fight, but in the end Mecha Sonic left Bunnie lying on the forest floor unconscious, her mechanical parts badly damaged and her organic parts in only marginally better shape. Sonic could barely believe Bunnie had survived that without any lasting injuries, and couldn't help but feel guilty even though he hadn't been in control of himself.

Soon Mecha Sonic reached Knothole, but before he could cause much damage Knuckles showed up and confronted him. Sonic left him in nearly as bad shape as Bunnie, then began demolishing the village, firing upon the fleeing villagers. He even attempted to shoot Tails, but Sonic's true personality still had enough strength to make Mecha Sonic hesitate – and before Mecha Sonic could overcome that hesitation, Knuckles returned to fight him again, now as Mecha Knuckles.

The battle with Mecha Knuckles was brutal; they were both in terrible shape by the time they wound up back in Robotropolis and crashed into a missile silo. Then the world went white for Sonic...

...And he woke up back in the hospital, to Dr. Quack disconnecting him from the Dream Watcher. Dr. Quack informed him he had noticed the readings from the device weren't right, and had shut it down as quickly as was safe.

Sonic told Sally and Dr. Quack about Chrono-nik's sabotage, and Quack said he'd see what he could do to repair the device – but it might take a day or two. Sally was concerned about the fact that Chrono-nik was in the present, but she was more concerned with her father and told Sonic they'd discuss the matter later.

Leaving the Hospital, the first thing Sonic did was find Bunnie and apologize for how he had hurt her as Mecha Sonic; she told him not to worry about it, as she'd already forgiven him.

Sonic then went for a run to clear his head. Many questions filled his head, among them who that girl that had been with the King in the bit of the King's memory he had seen had been; given the similarity in appearance the thought occurred to him it might be Sally's clone, but if so how did she wind up in the Zone of Silence? However, the issue he was most concerned about was the fact that Chrono-nik, his future self's enemy, who would be responsible for the end of the world, was now messing around in the present day. He couldn't help but wonder – did this mean things were going to get even worse than they had in his future self's history? And if a version of himself who could travel through time and do things like create a second Sally from some dirt and leaves couldn't stop Chrono-nik, what hope did the present day Sonic and Freedom Fighters have?

STH * STH * STH

 _Dreams and Reality_

That night, Sally woke Sonic up to tell him she had an urgent mission for him; she'd explain along the way. She led him into the Great Forest – and right into an ambush by Com-bots. Even as Sonic fought the robots, Sally transformed before his eyes into a robot, and revealed that she had intentionally led Sonic into this trap – and that she was and had been for some time a willing servant of Robotnik.

Too distraught to fight Sally, Sonic retreated. Before long he encountered Tails, who offered to fly him back to Knothole - but before they had gotten far at all, Tails dropped him towards a waiting Crabmeat robot. Sonic escaped, and continued towards Knothole on foot.

Next Sonic ran across Bunnie, who was sitting by a tree, one of her legs too damaged for her to walk; she said she'd been attacked by Sally and Tails. Sonic helped her to her feet – but then her leg repaired itself and her organic parts changed to mechanical. Sonic managed to slip out of her grasp just in time, then used the environment to his advantage to subdue her long enough to escape.

As Sonic neared Knothole, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on. How could his friends be flesh and blood one minute, then robots the next? Were they really already robots, and just disguised as flesh and blood Mobians? And if so, were they robot duplicates, or had Robotnik somehow gotten his hands on Sonic's friends without Sonic ever suspecting it?

Things took an even more bizarre turn when Sonic made it into Knothole only to discover that the robotic versions of his friends had made it there first, along with several Com-bots and Robotnik himself.

Robotnik now offered Sonic a choice: surrender and allow himself to be roboticized, and he could spend all of eternity with his similarly roboticized friends. Or, continue to defy him and watch as Robotnik killed them all one by one and brought the world to ruin around Sonic.

Sonic hesitated a moment, thrown off his game by all the unpleasant surprises he'd been through over the past day, and not wanting to see his friends die. However he soon realized that like him they would all sooner die free than live as slaves, and so defiantly told Robotnik to do his worst; Sonic would never surrender.

Robotnik's body then transformed into a completely mechanical form just as the Freedom Fighters had, and began to glow blue. Robotnik, or rather Chrono-nik, smiled, and said, "As you wish." Then Sonic's world went white again, and Sonic again found himself waking up in the hospital, connected to the Dream Watcher. Apparently, everything Sonic had experienced since his first encounter with Chrono-nik in the King's mind had been an illusion...

Dr. Quack was confused by the fact that the Dream Watcher had shut down on it's own, until Sonic told him and Sally about Chrono-nik's sabotage. Quack said he'd see what he could do to repair the device – but it might take a few days. Sally was dismayed to learn that Chrono-nik was in the present, but told Sonic that until they knew more there was nothing they could do about it, and at the moment her primary concern was her father.

As he left the Hospital, Sonic couldn't help but find it creepy how similar Sally and Dr. Quack's reactions had been to the way they had acted in the illusion.

It occurred to Sonic that his apology to Bunnie had been in the illusion as well, so he found her and once more apologized for how he had hurt her as Mecha Sonic. She told him he didn't need to apologize, as he hadn't been himself at the time.

The rest of the day continued to be eerily similar to what he'd experienced in the illusion, and Sonic was very relieved when he woke up the next morning to find he had slept through the night without being interrupted for an urgent mission.

Later that day, Sally called a Freedom Fighter meeting to discuss the previous day's events. Everyone was quite disturbed to learn that they were now dealing not only with Robotnik, but his robotic future self. Unfortunately, not only did they know very little about Chrono-nik, they currently had no good means of learning more about him. Which meant that for now all they could do was wait for Chrono-nik to make his next move and hope this time it was something they could fight back against.

In other news, the damage to the Dream Watcher was worse than Dr. Quack had expected, and it could be months before he got it working again. It seemed that now Knuckles and the Sword of Acorns were the King's only hope.

Within a day the King's body had completely turned to crystal. Fortunately, despite the physical transformation his vital signs remained stable.

STH * STH * STH

 _A World Without Heroes_

A few days after the Dream Watcher incident, Rotor's early warning systems detected some Swat-bots wandering too close to Knothole. The Freedom Fighters (minus Sonic and Dulcy) went to destroy the Swat-bots – but were captured instead.

Robotnik had Sally separated from the others so he could use her as bait for Sonic, and sent the other four down to one of the detention blocks. However, as the Swat-bots transported the prisoners to their cells, a blue humanoid robot resembling a Com-bot intercepted the group. Claiming to have new orders from Robotnik, it took Bunnie out of the Swat-bots' hands.

Bunnie was taken to an interrogation room, where the robot restrained her to a chair. It then removed a syringe filled with a silver liquid from its arm, and (ignoring Bunnie's demands to know what it was) injected it into her flesh-and-blood arm. To Bunnie's surprise, the robot then removed her restraints and escorted her to a cell near the others, locking her in and leaving without a word.

Meanwhile, Sonic learned the Freedom Fighters were missing, and raced to Robotropolis, where he found Robotnik waiting for him on top of a building with Sally and a number of Swat-bots. Robotnik was gloating about how Sonic wouldn't be able to get out of this one, when a dimensional distortion occurred, drawing everyone on the rooftop into another Zone.

Not long after this, Larry Lynx learned of what had happened to the Freedom Fighters, and gathered together Cyril the Eagle and Sally's Trainees for a rescue mission. They broke into Robotropolis and rescued Rotor, Tails, Bunnie, and Antoine, and with their help began searching for Sonic and Sally.

Elsewhere, Sonic, Sally, Robotnik, and his Swat-bots found themselves in a city much like Robotropolis but far cleaner and more high tech. They were soon surrounded by bronze-colored humanoid robots vaguely resembling Swat-bots but far more powerful (a fact proven when they easily defeated Robotnik's Swat-bots). Sonic, Sally, and Robotnik were taken prisoner.

Finding themselves locked up in a high-tech dungeon, Sonic and Sally agreed to a temporary truce with Robotnik in order to escape. They broke out of their cells, then Robotnik and Sally (with the help of Nicole) hacked into the city's computer network.

They learned that they were in Robotropolis, but the year was 3355, and the city was ruled by a robotic version of Robotnik who called himself Chrono-nik. Chrono-nik had conquered the planet over a century ago, roboticizing the entire population and those animals and plants he found useful, and killing off everything else. He had then started sending ships into space to colonize and conquer other planets; he now ruled a vast interstellar Empire. Not satisfied with that, he had also been sending his troops into other Zones so as to expand his empire across the multiverse. It had been an experiment with a Zone Portal Generator which had brought them all here.

Sonic and Sally were relieved to learn that this wasn't the future of their world; Robotnik was concerned as it meant he had a rival. Sonic and Sally couldn't help but wonder if this Chrono-nik had anything to do with the Chrono-nik Sonic's future self had talked about and/or the one who had sabotaged the Dream Watcher.

Knowing they likely stood little chance against this Chrono-nik, Robotnik and the Freedom Fighters decided to focus on getting home for now.

The unlikely team broke into the Zone Portal Laboratory easily enough, facing only a few relatively weak guards and little other security. Sally and Robotnik thought it was too easy, but put aside their worries to find the Portal Generator. Neither of them were able to decipher the coordinate system the device used, but luckily it kept a record of previously opened portals, and Robotnik was able to figure out which record corresponded to their arrival. He set the device to send them home, and not wanting anybody to follow them also set the device to close the portal after they went through, and then charge up the Generator until it overloaded, causing an explosion that ought to destroy the entire facility.

Robotnik, Sally, and Sonic stepped through the portal and found themselves back on the rooftop they'd been pulled from hours before; the portal closed behind them moments later. Robotnik immediately called for back-up; Sonic had barely had time to ask Sally what the plan was when Swat-bots began emerging onto the roof. Sally told Sonic to run, so he grabbed her and made his escape. Robotnik sent his troops after them, but Sonic and Sally met up with Larry Lynx's group and the other Freedom Fighters first, and together they fled the city.

STH * STH * STH

 _Bunnie's Nightmare_

When the Freedom Fighters got back to Knothole, Bunnie told the others about her strange encounter with the blue robot. Concerned about what the silver substance could have been, Sally had Rotor and Dr. Quack both examine her. The initial examination showed nothing wrong with her, but to be safe they took a blood sample, and told her to report back to them if she felt strange or noticed anything wrong.

Meanwhile, Sally began making plans to hold a ceremony the next day to thank Larry's group and officially designate them the Substitute Freedom Fighters.

That night just before bed Bunnie noticed that her right wrist was a bit itchy, but didn't think it important enough to disturb Rotor or Doctor Quack about after dark.

The next morning she discovered to her horror that her right arm had became partially mechanical. She immediately rushed to Rotor for help. Rotor informed her that the mechanical parts of her arm were of the same design as that produced by the roboticizer. Further tests, and the results from the previous day's blood test, revealed that she had been infected with a strain of microscopic robots (nanites) equipped with roboticization capability; they were slowly roboticizing her from the inside out. Rotor called in Sir Charles, and the two began searching for a cure.

Sally postponed the ceremony to honor Larry and his group in order to lead a mission into Robotropolis to try to learn more about Bunnie's condition from the source. However, there were no clues in the detention facility Bunnie had been infected in, and hacking Robotropolis' computer systems provided no hints either – Nicole couldn't even find any data about the robot that had done it. When Robotnik got wise to their snooping around, they were forced to leave empty handed.

Sally was so preoccupied with Bunnie's condition that it took Bunnie insisting on it to get her to go through with the ceremony for Larry and the others.

Over the next few days the Freedom Fighters stopped Robotnik from stealing the Flickie Zone's Chaos Emerald and stopped Robotnik's Eco Destroyer from cutting down the Great Jungle. On both these missions Rotor stayed behind to continue working on Bunnie's cure; as Rotor had much of the information he needed already and Bunnie wasn't in immediate danger of loosing control of her mind (and she had a Neuro-Overrider just in case), Bunnie went on those missions instead. As the days passed the rest of her arm became mechanical and metal plating began to spread over her torso, but as much as these changes disturbed her, physically speaking they only made her stronger.

When Antoine uncovered a map left by his father, the Freedom Fighters followed it to a dump in Robotropolis that had once been Budding Circle; they stopped Robotnik' assistant Snivley from excavating whatever was buried there, but due to Swat-bot patrols were unable to dig it up themselves either.

Shortly after this Rotor made a breakthrough. Using focused EMPs (ElectroMagnetic Pulses) he was able to temporarily halt the progress of the Nanites. However this was not a cure – the nanites remained in Bunnie's system and if she wasn't treated daily the nanites would reactivate and continue from where they left off. Rotor and Sir Charles continued their search for a cure.

STH * STH * STH

 _Quests Derailed_

Meanwhile on the Floating Island, Knuckles' quest for the Sword of Acorns led him to a region known as the Land of Dark. There he was ambushed by a feline Sorcerer and a rabbit Enchantress. The Sorcerer controlled powerful lightning bolts, but the real threat came from the Enchantress: as soon as Knuckles made the mistake of looking her in the eyes she was able to ensnare his will and magically enslave him.

The duo took Knuckles back to their lair, where the Enchantress made him work as her personal servant. While the work was rarely grueling, it was often demeaning, and worse, he had no control over his body at all. After several days he was beginning to despair of ever getting free.

Then the paladin Sir Connery broke into the lair to challenge the pair of evil magicians. However, before the confrontation could begin blue electricity coursed through the room, and Chrono-nik appeared in an explosion of blue smoke and fire. He introduced himself and said that he had come to this time period for two reasons – the first being to inform Knuckles and Sir Connery that he had slain the Ancient Walkers.

Sir Connery did not believe Chrono-nik's claims, but could see well enough that he was a villain. The paladin attacked Chrono-nik, but his sword had no affect on Chrono-nik. Chrono-nik retaliated with a blast of energy from his hand which completely disintegrated Sir Connery.

Chrono-nik now revealed the second reason he had come: to make sure Knuckles knew that all the suffering Knuckles would go through in the coming weeks was Chrono-nik's doing, as revenge for the trouble Knuckles had caused Robotnik. He then told the Sorcerer and Enchantress to exploit Knuckles however they saw fit, but to make sure he did not escape; if they still had Knuckles in their power when he came to claim the Island for himself he would allow them a place in his empire, but if Knuckles got free he would make their deaths far more unpleasant than Sir Connery's had been. And with that, he disappeared as he had came, in blue smoke, flame, and lightning.

The Sorcerer and Enchantress were confused and a bit frightened by this turn of events, but after some deliberation decided it would be in their best interests to keep Knuckles as their slave.

STH * STH * STH

 _Countdown to Armageddon_

With the Freedom Fighters stressed out by recent events, Princess Sally decided to have a "Campfire Pow-wow" to help everyone relax. That evening Sally, Sonic, Bunnie, Antoine, Tails, Dulcy and Sir Charles all headed out into the woods, where they built a bonfire and roasted hot-dogs. However, they hadn't been at it long when the Wolf Pack showed up, having just recently escaped from a fierce battle with Robotnik's forces.

Most of the wolves enjoyed relaxing by the fire as much as the Freedom Fighters, but one of them, Drago, couldn't get over the fact that they were eating with the "enemy" (in the form of the robotic Sir Charles). The mood was further soured when Geoffrey St. John showed up uninvited and started throwing accusations around as well. Sonic and Geoffrey got into an argument which degraded into an all out brawl; Antoine of all people joined in to help Sonic.

Sally had just managed to break up the fight when Rotor showed up to tell them he had just gotten a message from the Chaotix: a blue robot matching the description of the one that had infected Bunnie was causing havoc on the Floating Island. They had tried to stop it but it was far more powerful than anything they'd faced before. To make matters worse, Knuckles was missing; the fire-Ant Archimedes had gone looking for him some time ago but they had yet to hear back from him.

Concerned for Knuckles and the inhabitants of the Island, and also hoping the robot might provide some clues on how to cure Bunnie, Sally ordered her Freedom Fighters to prepare to head to the Floating Island immediately.

Due to travel time and the Floating Island being over another part of the world, it was light out when Sonic, Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, Rotor, Tails, and Dulcy arrived. They met up with Charmy the Bee, who led them to the latest settlement the blue robot had attacked, where the rest of the Chaotix were doing their best to keep the robot from harming civilians. The Freedom Fighters quickly joined the fight, allowing the badly injured and exhausted Chaotix to retreat and tend to their wounds.

Even as it fought with the Freedom Fighters the robot introduced itself as Chrono-bot 7, one of an elite group of robots serving "Lord Chrono-nik". Not only had it infected Bunnie with the roboticization nanites, but it had also been responsible for sabotaging the Dream Watcher. Both of these events, and more besides, were part of Chrono-nik's master plan to punish all those who had or one day would defy him – and nothing the Freedom Fighters did would help them, as history was Chrono-nik's to reshape as he saw fit.

The Freedom Fighters tried not to think too much about the Chrono-bot's claims and instead focus on the fight. However it soon became apparent why the Chaotix had been unable to beat it, as it was far faster, stronger, and smarter than an elite Com-bot, and had an equally impressive arsenal up it's sleeve (including darts filled with roboticizer nanites; luckily no one was hit by them). It was also shielded against EMPs (one of the Freedom Fighters' few trump cards against Robotnik's more powerful robots).

The battle lasted over an hour, and all of the Freedom Fighters suffered injuries. The Chaotix returned to the fight despite their injured state but even this wasn't quite enough to turn the tide. Sally was trying to convince Sonic they would need to retreat and come up with a new plan when Archimedes showed up, having learned of the battle through sources he refused to disclose. Archimedes took Sally aside and together with Nicole they worked out a plan to stop the robot.

After dropping a few buildings on the Chrono-bot to slow it down, Bunnie and Mighty the Armadillo worked together to tear a hole in its chest armor. While the rest of the team kept it too distracted to properly retaliate, Bunnie, Rotor, and Archimedes fired into the hole as often as possible for as long as possible (Bunnie with her arm-cannon, Rotor with a plasma bazooka of his own design, and Archimedes with his fire-breath). It still took several minutes before the robot fell – and even then it had one last parting gift.

Rather than powering down, blue light began to pour from the hole in the Chrono-bot's chest and blue sparks coursed over it's body. Nicole warned that the robot's power output was rising exponentially and a temporal distortion was starting to form around it. Everyone fled the scene, those less injured helping the remaining villagers to evacuate; they had just made it to a safe distance when the Chrono-bot exploded with a flash of light, flames, and smoke, all colored blue. When the light faded and the smoke cleared, a crater several dozen yards across was left behind – along with a lingering temporal distortion (or so Nicole informed them).

After the Freedom Fighters had tended their wounds, and Rotor had retrieved one of the nanite darts for further study, Sally offered to help the Chaotix look for Knuckles.

Luckily, Archimedes already had determined Knuckles' location. The two groups headed there, and with a bit of searching located the Sorcerer and Enchantress. Working together, the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix beat the two mages and rescued Knuckles. Even after the spell on him ended, Knuckles was a bit out of it at first. Once he recovered, Knuckles thanked them, and promised Sally he'd continue his search for the Sword of Acorns.

After the Freedom Fighters had left, and the Sorcerer and Enchantress had been imprisoned, Knuckles began searching through the Sorcerer and Enchantress' belongings in search of clues that might lead him to the next part of his quest.

Back in the Great Forest, the Freedom Fighters returned home. After a long night and an intense battle, most of the Freedom Fighters headed to bed. Before Sally could get ready for bed however, Rosie burst into her hut and told her to follow her quickly. Sally followed Rosie to another hut, where waiting for her was a completely flesh-and-blood and apparently fully healthy King Acorn!

STH * STH * STH

 _Endgame_

The next day, on the orders of King Acorn, the Freedom Fighters went on a mission to Robotropolis. The Wolf Pack and most of the Freedom Fighters waited in hiding, while Sonic and Sally made their way to the top of Robotnik's Headquarters. They then split up, Sonic heading inside through a ventilation duct, while Sally began rappelling down the side of the building. But then Sonic (or someone or thing that looked just like him) came back out of the building and cut her rope.

Sally fell several stories and was knocked unconscious. The other Freedom Fighters rushed her to Knothole, but it was too late. Not long after she was taken to Knothole Hospital, Dr. Quack pronounced her dead.

When Sonic arrived back in Knothole, he was immediately arrested, and was shocked when he learned the charge was murder of Princess Sally. He was soon put on trial by King Acorn himself; Sonic maintained his innocence, but was swiftly convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the Devil's Gulag.

On the way to the Gulag, the plane carrying Sonic was attacked by Swat-bots and crashed. Sonic survived the crash, beat the bots, and escaped. The King sent Geoffrey St. John to track him down.

Meanwhile, Bunnie and Antoine discovered Drago to be in league with Robotnik, but were captured by Com-bots under his command, and sent to Robotnik's Slave Labor Mines in Downunda.

Not long after this, Robotnik invaded Knothole. Most of the village's defenders had been on missions or attending a speech by the King, and the Com-bots were able to take control of the village with a minimum of violence. To those assembled for the King's speech, Robotnik revealed that the King they'd been following the past few days was actually one of his Auto-Automaton robot duplicates; the real King had never recovered from his crystallization and was now being held in Robotropolis.

Meanwhile in the wilderness, Sonic met up with Dulcy, who flew him to the Floating Island. However, Geoffrey and his men boarded an aerial transport and followed him.

In Downunda, Bunnie was fitted with explosives which were hooked up to her mechanical parts; the Com-bots threatened to blow her and anyone around her up if she attempted to use her mechanical strength. Antoine and Bunnie were then taken to their cell, where they met some fellow prisoners - the Downunda Freedom Fighters. Shortly after this they were also introduced to the head of the mining operation: Robotnik's regional Underboss, Crocbot (who had recently rebuilt himself to be half humanoid crocodile robot, and half tank).

On the Floating Island, Sonic and Dulcy arrived and tried to recruit Knuckles, but then Geoffrey showed up and told Knuckles that Sonic had killed Sally. Knuckles joined up with Geoffrey in fighting Sonic, but Dulcy interrupted the fight to explain that dragons had the ability to sense when someone was lying, and she believed Sonic when he said he was innocent.

Back in Robotropolis, Robotnik used a captive Overlander as the test subject in the final test of his new Ultimate Annihilator weapon; the Overlander was completely disintegrated.

In Downunda, the prisoners pooled their resources in an escape attempt. Unfortunately, when not being forced to work Bunnie was restrained in shackles too strong for her to break without triggering her bombs, so she was unable to help them. The break-out attempt was a failure, and the prisoners were re-captured.

Crocbot had an air-bus loaded with ore from the mines; hoping to take over from Robotnik, he gave one of his Com-bots a miniature nuclear bomb and orders to use it to destroy Robotnik and his headquarters.

After the ship had departed, a Chrono-bot appeared on the air-bus in a flash of blue light. The Chrono-bot overpowered the Com-bot and took custody of the bomb. Disposing of the Com-bot, the Chrono-bot double-checked that the auto-pilot was set for Robotropolis, then departed the same way it had came.

Meanwhile, Sonic, Geoffrey, and Knuckles arrived in Knothole, and took on the Swat-bots and Com-bots holding the villagers prisoner. Many of the villagers joined in the fight, and before long the robots had been destroyed and the village freed.

In Robotropolis, the ore shipment arrived; Robotnik had it loaded into the Ultimate Annihilator.

Back in Knothole, Sonic had had enough; he intended to bring an end to Robotnik's reign or die trying. He raced to the city, blowing through the defenses. As Sonic entered Robotnik's Headquarters, Snivley attempted to stand in his way; Sonic beat him, knocking him down an open shaft.

Meanwhile, Robotnik powered up the Ultimate Annihilator, targeting it on Knothole. Sonic arrived just in time to watch the Annihilator's beam hit Knothole on the view-screen; all that was left was a smoking crater. Enraged, Sonic attacked Robotnik. Robotnik retaliated, in a no-holds-barred battle that only ended when the UA backfired, sending a wave of destructive energy through the room.

As the wave of energy washed over Sonic and Robotnik, everything went white.

STH * STH * STH

 _Restart_

Robotnik had expected the wave of energy to destroy him, so he was rather surprised when he found himself standing in what appeared to be the throne room of Castle Acorn as it had been prior to his coup. On the throne sat a fully flesh-and-blood (and very surprised and confused) King Acorn; nearby stood Warlord Kodos (who Robotnik had trapped in the Zone of Silence years before the coup).

Neither the King or Kodos seemed to recognize Robotnik, which led him to believe he was in another zone and/or the past. Either way, he was certain he could turn this situation to his advantage...


	2. Second Chances

**Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Part II: Second Chances**

 _Arrival_

The Acorn Palace, 3217. King Acorn was discussing the war against the Overlanders with Warlord Kodos, when there was a flash of light, and standing in the middle of the room was a fat, bald, mustached Overlander with a robotic arm, red glowing mechanical eyes, and an outlandish red costume with pointy shoulder-guards, yellow accents, and a yellow cape.

Kodos immediately decided that the Overlander had come to destroy them, and attacked. However, the Overlander easily knocked Kodos aside with his mechanical arm. The stranger held a ready, aggressive stance, but did not push his advantage; instead he demanded to know where he was – and when.

King Acorn had seen the stranger's look of confusion upon his arrival, and believed that the stranger wasn't there by choice. The King answered his questions, and the stranger's expression turned thoughtful. The King then asked to know who the stranger was, and to hear his story.

The stranger introduced himself as Dr. Julian Kintobor, an Overlander scientist from the year 3235. He had been testing out an experimental device with the potential to warp space and time when something had went wrong, and the next thing he knew he had found himself here. His first thought had been that he had been sent back in time; however in the world he remembered, he had been living in Mobotropolis in 3217. If Kodos and King Acorn didn't recognize him, he could only conclude that the device had somehow created an inter-dimensional breach, and deposited him in an entirely different Zonal reality.

Kodos was suspicious of this story; not only was the idea of time and Zone travel preposterous, but even if all that was true, they were in the middle of a war with the Overlanders – how could Julian, an Overlander, have been living in Mobotropolis in that alternate reality?

Julian claimed that he had always been sympathetic to the Acorn Kingdom's cause, and had fled Overland for fear of being persecuted as a traitor. In his own world King Acorn had given him refuge, and in return he had designed and helped build an army of robots that allowed them to win the war with minimal loss of life.

Julian offered the King the same deal, with the added benefit of some advice based on his knowledge of the future. The King accepted.

STH * STH * STH

 _R_ _ise to Power_

With Julian's advice and mechanical designs, the Acorn Kingdom made amazing technological advances. Julian soon became chief scientist to the Acorn Kingdom, and factories soon sprang up on the outskirts of Mobotropolis, building Private and Elite class Com-bots as well as other war machines that were cutting edge in 3235.

Meanwhile, in secret Julian built a working test model of the Ultimate Annihilator and began experimenting to determine what had went wrong. He determined that the device did in fact have the potential to breach Zone boundaries; if some of the settings were set incorrectly it was possible that rather than destroying a target the Annihilator would simply push the target into another Zone. Of course for the device to have affected him at all, it would need to have either had a catastrophic mechanical flaw or to have been deliberately sabotaged – presumably by someone unaware of the fail-safes he had built in to protect himself. In fact, experimenting further he determined that if the device had been targeted on him without the fail-safes being removed, it would result in exactly the kind of dimensional warp which could result in a subject being pushed into another Zone.

It seemed almost certain that he had been betrayed – and the list of those with the knowledge to sabotage the UA was extremely small. This made him eager to return home and punish the perpetrator – however, while he could open a Zone portal easily enough, he wasn't quite sure how to find his way home. He decided to build a dedicated Zone-portal device and send robotic scouts across the Cosmic Interstate (a network of roads floating in the void between universes) looking for his home world.

And in the mean time, Robotnik decided to focus on conquering the world he found himself on, starting by winning the war...

This time around Julian was unable to bring himself to pretend to humility or to take his time as he ingratiated himself with the King; as a result he and Kodos wound up rivals rather than allies. Kodos continued to be suspicious of Julian, even going so far as to periodically investigate Julian's factories and main laboratory. Growing tired of this, Julian allowed Kodos to learn of his secret laboratory – but booby trapped the lab so that the UA test device would blast Kodos the moment he tried to tamper with anything. The plan worked, and soon the position of Warlord was open.

Julian convinced King Acorn to give him the position of Warlord, and between his advanced robots and knowledge of the future he was able to bring the war to a swift conclusion; by the end of 3220 Overland's army had surrendered. Despite King Acorn's inclination to be merciful, Julian insisted on harsh terms of surrender which made Overland a vassal state of the Acorn Kingdom in all but name.

Julian now took the opportunity to discreetly look into the Overland records to learn what had happened to this world's version of himself. He discovered that much like himself, this world's Julian Kintobor had fled Overland after being convicted of various crimes (including but not limited to murder) stemming from his early Ultimate Annihilator experiments. However unlike the Zonally displaced Julian, this world's Julian was unable to reach the sanctuary of the Acorn Kingdom, instead being shot dead in the wilderness by the troops sent to hunt him down. Julian was actually rather relieved to learn this, as it meant he wouldn't have to fight with another version of himself for control of this world.

Julian was not surprised when a few weeks after the end of the war, the King dissolved the position of Warlord and demanded the decommissioning of the robot army. Julian played along just long enough to take care of a few last details, such as arranging for the tragic deaths of several infants: Rotor Walrus, Antoine DeCoolette, Bunnie Rabbot, and Sir Charle's nephew Olgilvie Maurice Hedgehog. (Olgilvie died a painful death from food poisoning due to tainted chili dogs.)

Now, just as he had done in his home world, he staged a coup, using his Com-bots to take control of Mobotropolis and by extension the Acorn Kingdom and Overland. The King was taken captive shortly after the start of the coup, but Queen Alicia and the royal nursemaid Rosie were able to escape with the royal children Prince Elias and Princess Sally. They headed for Knothole, the secret royal retreat in the Great Forest – but they found Com-bots there waiting for them.

As their master did not want to risk any of the royal family being the focal point of a rebellion, the Com-bots immediately executed them all.

Back in Mobotropolis, Julian had King Acorn brought before him. To the outraged and shocked King, Julian revealed at last the one critical element he'd left out of his stories of his old world - the fact that after winning the war he had taken control of the nation for himself. Now Julian took the name Dr. Ivo Robotnik once more, and declared that Mobotropolis was to be renamed Robotropolis. As for the King, the first time around Robotnik had merely exiled him, but now Robotnik knew that he was far too powerful a symbol to be allowed to live; instead he was to be publicly executed.

All of the citizens of the city were rounded up; as many as could be fit were placed around a stage set up in the center of the city's largest park. A nervous, disbelieving quiet settled over the crowd as their King was forced to kneel to their new ruler, Robotnik. King Acorn was then brought over to a makeshift chopping block, where he was forced to kneel again. The executioner was a Com-bot painted black, and armed with a laser axe; one swift stroke and the King's head was rolling across the stage.

The crowd now broke out into cries of horror and outrage, but the Com-bots forcefully quelled the chaos, using stun beams on the citizens when necessary. A few Mobians were allowed to escape to spread the news of what had happened; the rest were systematically brought to the roboticizers Robotnik already had set up, for conversion into robots.

And thus was Robotnik's second empire founded.

STH * STH * STH

 _Conquest_

With his weapons of war at least ten years in advance of what was available to the rest of the world, as well as his knowledge of the future and his experience in conquering the world, the nations of this world fell to Robotnik even faster than they had in his own world.

By 3228 Robotnik had defeated and taken control of all of the world's nations, unifying them into his Robotnik Empire. His plan to roboticize the entire world population proceeded much more slowly, which gave the people time to form various resistance groups. However, most of these groups he was prepared for and was able to eliminate before they greatly inconvenienced him; with the Knothole Freedom Fighters prevented from forming there were none who truly threatened him.

While he firmed up his control over the planet, and continued systematically roboticizing the population, he continued to build up his armies – for one world was not enough to satisfy him. He had his inter-zonal scouts shift from searching for his home world to seeking to learn anything they could about neighboring Zones in preparation for eventually invading them. In addition, he began building space ships with which he could send his robots to colonize other planets.

STH * STH * STH

 _Secrets of Space-Time_

Even as he put much of his effort into conquest, Robotnik kept up a number of advanced scientific research projects, including Zone boundary manipulation and inter-zonal teleportation. One project that began to consume his personal focus was research into space-time warps, key to both time travel and faster than light travel.

Back on his old world he had constructed a crude time machine, but it had been highly imprecise, and he had initially thought it's inability to break causality a fatal flaw. However, in light of how he had been able to use knowledge of the future of one zone to conquer another, he now realized a working time machine could be an invaluable tool for intelligence gathering. More importantly, if he could control the arrival point precisely enough, he could use it to transport himself (and his troops) anywhere in the universe he knew the location of.

By 3230 he had devised a means to target past space-time points by following light-waves to their source. While he could not select a specific year in the past and travel to it, he could sample a beam of light then travel through time and space to the place and time it had originated. Furthermore, as the device always stored it's home coordinates, returning home was a simple affair.

Based on this research, Robotnik had several Wormhole Generators built and installed upon his most advanced and heavily armed space-ships. He then ordered the ships and their crews to begin systematically searching the galaxy for planets, moons, and similar objects which would be viable targets for mining, colonization, or conquest.

STH * STH * STH

 _Firestorm_

In 3233 Robotnik completed the roboticization of his "subjects"; now the only living Mobians left were the few remaining rebels and a few others who had fled his robots but chose to hide rather than fight back.

Robotnik's eventual goal was the complete roboticization of the planet; however while he felt capturing and roboticizing all Overlanders and Mobians was within his power, roboticizing every animal and plant with roboticizers that could only handle one organism at a time would be far too time consuming. He considered building a new Death Egg and mass-roboticizing the entire planet; however that ran the risk of destroying the already existing robots (as attempting to roboticize a robot created destructive energy feedback) and while he could perhaps find uses for some non-humanoid animal robots, he didn't need the countless numbers of them that roboticizing the planet would create - and he had even less use for robotic plants. Instead he decided to eliminate the unneeded lifeforms by rendering the planet uninhabitable.

He had never bothered to make any attempts to limit the pollution produced by his factories, vehicles, or any other elements of his empire, so he was already off to a good start on this project. Robotropolis and many of his other industrial cities were blanketed in a constant cloud of smog, world temperatures were rising due to greenhouse gasses in the air, and the ozone layer was well on its way to becoming Swiss-cheese. However, it would take far too long at the current rate for all life to be driven extinct.

To speed things along, he conceived of "the Firestorm Project". The first step of this project: mass produce hundreds of nuclear weapons, as well as large supplies of combustible chemicals. While he was at it, he began shielding all of his critical computers and most important robots from EMPs.

Knowing that if this plan worked the planet would be uninhabitable to him as well, he built a Neruo-Overrider (based on the design of a device he had confiscated from Princess Sally one time he captured her in his original timeline), then using it to retain his free will, roboticized himself. He then installed various weapons in his mechanical body, and shielded himself from EMPs.

In the Spring (of the Northern Hemisphere) of 3239 he began the ultimate phase of the Firestorm Project. He started by firing nuclear missiles at any resistance settlement he had been able to locate that wasn't close to one of his cities. This was followed shortly by the near simultaneous detonation of hundreds of nuclear bombs across the world – some on or under the land, in order to create as much fallout as possible, some in the air to spread the fallout as far as possible, and some in the oceans so as to further pollute that vast reservoir of life. The bombs which were near or in forests created massive forest-fires so hot and fast moving nothing could survive or escape - the firestorms for which the project was named.

Robotnik now sent out airships laden with large supplies of fossil fuels and other combustibles. They began spraying these materials over those grasslands, forests, and wetlands which had escaped the nuclear firestorms (including those too close to his cities to risk using nuclear bombs), and igniting them, creating new firestorms.

Within a week, all of the planet's forests and most other places with large amounts of plant life had been burnt to a crisp, producing a cloud of ash and smoke that darkened the skies world-wide. Some of the ash fell back down to the ground, carpeting parts of the planet in a blanket of radioactive soot; however much of the ash and smoke remained in the skies. As the fires died out, worldwide temperatures began to plummet; meanwhile chemical reactions in the upper smoke clouds ate away at what remained of the ozone layer.

With most of the light from the sun blocked, plants began to die off even before temperatures dropped enough for nightly frosts to set in across most of the world. Within a few months, snow began to fall across the arctic and temperate regions of the planet (even in the Northern Hemisphere where it was supposed to be Summer)... Robotnik's Nuclear Winter had begun...

STH * STH * STH

 _Worlds Beyond_

With the vast majority of the world's human and Mobian population roboticized, and most of the rest of the life on the planet dead or soon to die, Robotnik decided the time had come to expand his empire beyond the one world currently under his control.

Many of his robot slaves he put on ships not equipped with wormhole generators to colonize some of the rocky planets and moons of Mobius' solar system. Others he sent to the asteroids to begin mining operations.

However, much of his army he sent through Zone Portals to two neighboring versions of Mobius. He had selected these worlds in particular as they had few or no military forces to oppose him. One was a world which had been conquered by that world's version of himself; however an explosion at his "Doomsday Project" had resulted in the deaths of not only Robotnik but also Sonic and Princess Sally (as well as several other resistance leaders), thus leaving the world ripe for picking. The other was a world where his counterpart was an ineffectual buffoon whose pathetic attempts at world conquest were constantly thwarted by Sonic and Tails (without even any other Freedom Fighters to assist them); this world was effectively at peace and had been for so long that the only significant resistance Robotnik expected was from Sonic and Tails.

The invasion of the Doomsday world was quite simple, as the previous Robotnik's robots couldn't tell the difference between the two of them and immediately treated him as their master. Thanks to the Doomsday Project, the planet was even on the verge of ecological collapse; all he would have to do to complete the process was finish industrializing the planet.

However, shortly after he had taken control of the planet, an unexpected complication arose. A zonal breach allowed that world's version of the sorcerer Naugus to return, and he set out to take control of the plane using his magic. Robotnik found to his dismay that none of his machines could combat the sorcerer.

Meanwhile, in the peaceful Mobius, Sonic and Tails proved to be far more of a challenge for his forces than expected. He responded to this by bringing in more troops and more powerful weapons, but Sonic gathered that world's seven Chaos Emeralds and used it to transform into Super Sonic; in that form he was able to destroy a large part of Robotnik's invasion force.

Realizing the only way to fight magic was with magic, Robotnik began researching the magic of his adopted world, scouring libraries and ancient ruins for clues, and sending his robots to track down the Chaos Emerald and Power Rings. Unlike his own world, his adopted world proved to only have seven Chaos Emeralds, plus a large Master Emerald.

Thanks to his research Robotnik knew that the power of the emeralds responded best to sentient beings, so rather than use the Emeralds to fuel some weapon as he might have in the past, he designed a Chaos Siphon, and used it to drain the power of the eight Emeralds into his own body. His body was transformed into a new, glowing green mechanical form: "Emerald Robotnik".

After taking some time to master the power of chaos within him, Robotnik headed to the Doomsday world and confronted Naugus. The ensuing battle was cataclysmic, leaving much of the countryside in ruin and saturated with dark magic. Robotnik emerged triumphant, slaying the sorcerer.

Concerned that Super Sonic might be more powerful than Naugus and perhaps even himself, Emerald Robotnik sought out the magical objects of the Doomsday world now as well. That world did not have any Chaos Emeralds, but it did have Power Crystals with similar properties; Robotnik had his robots mine the crystal, and absorbed much of its power into himself.

Robotnik also discovered legends in the Doomsday World of the Time Stones, mystical objects with the power to not only transport the user through time, but to change history as well. They were said to exist on this world's Floating Island, but that island was either mythical or well hidden, for Robotnik could not locate it.

Deciding he ought to be powerful enough to take on Super Sonic as he was, he had his robots continue the search for the Floating Island, while he headed to the peaceful Mobius to lead the invasion himself. Soon Sonic returned to his Super form to stop him – but it wasn't enough. Emerald Robotnik defeated Super Sonic and drained him of his Chaos energy, forcing him back into his original hedgehog form. Emerald Robotnik beat Sonic to within an inch of his life, then brought him back to one of his mobile bases for roboticization.

After ensuring that the new Mecha Sonic could not regain his free will, Robotnik equipped him with weapons and armor, and appointed him the new head of the invasion force. Mecha Sonic captured Tails and brought him in roboticization, then the two of them dealt with the Robotnik native to their world.

After this, taking control of that world proved quite easy, though it did still take some time.

STH * STH * STH

 _Exploring Space and Time_

After months of searching, Robotnik's robots found the Doomsday Mobius' Floating Island – it was hidden within a perpetual cloud bank. Robotnik sent his robots in to retrieve the Time Stones. They found a large temple-like structure, and within it a maze that defied conventional physics. At the heart of that maze existed a giant animated stone owl head – the Guardian of the Time Stones. The Guardian refused to give the Time Stones to automatons, so Robotnik made his way through the maze himself and confronted the Guardian.

The Guardian cared only about the intelligence of those seeking the Time Stones, not their morality, and once Robotnik solved a riddle for it, the Guardian gave the Time Stones to him.

Robotnik tested out the Time Stones, and to his delight discovered that they could indeed allow their user to change the past. However, he was not content to merely use the stones – he wanted to understand them. And so he began examining them in his temporal research laboratory, trying to determine their secrets.

Meanwhile, the first of Robotnik's star ships traveled to nearby stars at the point in time when the light now reaching Mobius had first left those stars, then returned to report. While most of these stars had planets, none of them were inhabited; Robotnik took note of them for future colonization. Eventually he decided the constant trips back were a waste of time and energy; instead the ships would send back message pods with their findings, then move on to new stars. However, with each new star a ship traveled to, its journey took it further back in time.

As his ships reported back the space-time signatures of various points in the past of the galaxy, Robotnik began to develop a map of space-time. Of course as the ships were only traveling backwards in time, his map was limited to the past. Realizing that the more complete his map, the better he'd be able to calibrate his time machines, he had several ships travel into the distant future then work their way back to the present, mapping space-time as they went.

Eventually, his exploratory ships stumbled upon several planets inhabited by intelligent life. Most of them were inhabited by pre-industrial societies, and fell to his forces easily. However, three (Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian) had more advanced technology than Robotnik, and military forces strong enough to potentially defeat him. Fortunately, all three planets had recently been plunged into chaos and anarchy thanks to a series of assassinations of political leaders and devastating terrorist attacks utilizing weapons of mass destruction.

Robotnik took advantage of the chaos to steal a number of their ships, as well as a great deal of information on their technology. He then began upgrading his own forces, and building up his armies even more, in preparation for an invasion of those worlds.

In 3248, the space-time maps Robotnik's star-ships were producing provided the breakthrough which allowed Robotnik to design time machines which could target specific points in time. He now began working on designing smaller and more efficient devices, as well as on applying what he'd learned from the Time Stones to allow him to construct devices which could break the chains of causality.

The following year, Robotnik sent the bulk of his army through time and space to shortly after he'd plundered the planets Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian, and launched a full-scale invasion.

With his technology now on par with that of Qualltian (the most technologically advanced of the three planets) and his military more powerful than that of Garthak (the most militarily powerful of the planets prior to the current period of anarchy), he easily established footholds on all three planets and conquered vast swaths of territory. However, on Garthak several warlords held out against him for some time, while resistance groups soon arose on Alkatar and Qualltian.

Conveniently, the most powerful Gathakian warlords soon fell to assassination as well, while the resistance groups that seemed the most dangerous at first suffered a similar loss of leadership. An anonymous source using Robotnik's own codes also passed vital intel to Robotnik on the forces arrayed against him; he was suspicious of this source, but their information proved to be true, and made completing his conquest of the three worlds almost too easy.

Robotnik had all three planets, as well as the previous inhabited worlds he'd conquered converted into mining and industrial complexes to further expand his armies.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Final Doomsday_

By 3250, Mobius had began to noticeably warm, and snows stopped falling out of season. As the planet started to thaw, it began to reek of decay, as those animals and plants which had died and been frozen during the Nuclear Winter began to rot. At first Robotnik paid it little mind, but as green scum began to form on some bodies of water, scattered sprouts began to poke out of the ash, and rodents and cockroaches began to scurry out from their burrows, Robotnik realized that while he had dealt the ecosystem a terrible blow, he had failed in his attempt to kill off all life.

And so he began work on his own Doomsday Project (modeled on the Doomsday Project which had devastated the first world he invaded). The heart of this project would be a factory designed to build Doomsday Pods – aerial drones equipped with powerful sensors and deadly poisons, and tasked with seeking out and eliminating every last remaining life form on the planet.

Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, he made no effort to keep the project a secret; sure enough, the last remaining rebels attempted to sabotage the work on the project. Unfortunately for them, he was ready for them; in addition to a standard defensive force of mass-production Com-bots guarding the factory site and the research labs related to the project, he also had squads of Elite Com-bots lying in wait to ambush any rebel who attempted to attack one of the sites. The rebel forces were all killed or captured pending roboticization.

Less than a year after the start of the project, the Doomsday Factory came online. While in theory the factory could produce hundreds of Doomsday Pods a day, in practice production was limited by some of the rare materials needed to build the pods; despite this the factory was able to build over a hundred pods in the first twelve hours of operation, and another two hundred by the end of the month.

As soon as they were completed, Robotnik launched the Pods, and they began their search for the remaining life. As this life was scattered in small patches across the world, this search took some time. Furthermore, while killing individual plants and animals was easy once you found them, killing an algal bloom or billions of microbes living in soil required a lot more time and poison.

After six months most of the obvious traces of life had been eliminated, and Robotnik shut down the Doomsday factory. He kept the Pods already produced running for several years, tracking down the last few remaining organic life forms. He then put them into storage, in case he discovered any life they might have missed, or he needed to sterilize another world.

By 3255 the planet had reached its' pre-Firestorm temperatures again; thanks to the greenhouse gasses in the air (not only those produced by Robotnik's factories, but also those produced by the burning of the world's plant-life and by the rotting of the life forms killed after the firestorms) temperatures continued to rise. Global weather patterns shifted and the ice caps began to melt, but with the planet dead the only one inconvenienced by these effects was Robotnik himself.

STH * STH * STH

 _Mastering Time and Space_

In 3256 Robotnik first successfully replicated the Time Stones' causality-breaking effect with a Time Machine of his own creation. However, he quickly realized that if he sent his robots into the past to change history without accompanying them, the version of him that sent them back in time would be overwritten when the timeline changed. He wasn't very fond of the idea of having his current self erased from history even if another version of him took his place, and he also worried what might happen should his enemies learn how to change history, or if one of his time machines should fall into their hands. And so he began a new research project: to find a way to protect himself from alterations to history.

As Robotnik's research and experimentation continued, the size of the his machines continued to shrink, until in 3260 he developed a model of time machine which was small enough to install within a robot. For operations on a single planet, particularly ones that did not require a large number of troops, this would be far more convenient than the ship-board or stand-alone time machines. However, there was an increased risk that an enemy might get their hands on one of the devices, so he rigged them to self-destruct if tampered with.

Constructing these time machines required precision construction techniques (which in turn required a great deal of computer power) as well a number of exotic materials including a magical metal which could only be acquired by melting down Power Rings. As such he could not construct very many of them very rapidly (and even if he could, he wouldn't want too many of them around - this too would increase the chances of his enemies getting their hands on them). The first batch of seven (which also served as test units for his new anti-temporal-overwriting shielding) he placed within a squad of his most advanced Elite Com-bots, which he painted blue and designated as "Chrono-bots".

Robotnik ran the Chrono-bots through a number of tests, having them travel through time and alter history together and separately. He also had some of them stay in other time periods for years before returning, to make sure the Time-Machine wouldn't break down over time. The results were beyond his expectations; not only could the robots freely change history when in the past, but when a unit in the past changed history, those in a later year witnessed the world around them change without themselves being affected. Furthermore, the Time Machines continued to run at peak efficiency after decades of use with no maintenance (unlike the Chrono-bots themselves, which needed some repairs after so long in the field).

Now fully confident in these time machines, Robotnik had one installed in himself, and for good measure siphoned off the energy of the Time Stones into himself (as he had no further use for them). The temporal energies had an immediate reaction with the Chaos Energy already in his system, transforming his body into a powerful temporal engine which produced such an excess of temporal energy it caused his body to glow blue.

Meanwhile, as this energy interacted with his temporal shielding, memories flowed into his head of previous temporal incarnations of his self, in previous versions of this world's history. He remembered multiple versions of the attacks on Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian, in which fewer of the Warlords and resistance leaders had died, and the war had dragged on; in one timeline there had been no assassinations after he attacked, and the wars had still been going on in 3260. He remembered a version of the discovery of those planets in which the planets had been thriving civilizations at peace yet ready for war, and he had tried to establish peaceful relations with them until he could build up his power; unfortunately the government of Garthak had seen through his deception and launched their own war on him, which he had been badly loosing until he had completed his history-altering time machines and sent android assassins back in time to kill the Garthak leadership before they even started the war.

Apparently, he'd been his own secret ally in his wars against the alien planets.

He also remembered multiple versions of his life on his home Mobius. Most of these variations were minor, but in one of them when his rouge experimental robot EVE had blasted him twenty years into the future he had found himself on a Mobius at peace, ruled by King Sonic and Queen Sally, and had been sent back to 3234 by a digital copy of his mind which was trapped in the computer of an orbiting space station. Later in that timeline, when he had captured Sally and used her to trap Sonic, he had succeeded in killing Sonic, but the other Freedom Fighters had stubbornly continued to fight against him until he completed his Ultimate Annihilator and attempted to fire it, only to be sent into this world.

The version of him who had witnessed King Sonic and Queen Sally and had later killed Sonic appeared to be the same one who had discovered the alien worlds at peace; Robotnik suspected this was the "first" version of himself.

As Robotnik contemplated the physical and mental transformation he'd been through, he realized the time had come to change his name once more. From now on, he would be known as Chrono-nik.

STH * STH * STH

 _There's No Place Like Home_

As Chrono-nik continued his never-ending war of conquest, he began sending scout robots to learn everything they could about alien planets and alternate Zone before he invaded them, even going so far as to learn as much of their history as possible. He would select the best point in history to invade, or send in the Chrono-bots to rewrite that world's history to his liking.

Decades passed in Chrono-nik's personal timeline and on his Mobius. Com-bots were rendered obsolete and replaced with Eon Bots. Many Eon Bots were equipped with time machines, and the Com-bot-based Chrono-bots were shut down and put in storage. Chrono-nik's forces continued to expand through the Galaxy and the Cosmic Interstate, and his magical, technological, and military power continued to grow.

And yet Chrono-nik could not forget his birth world, where a pesky blue hedgehog had denied him total victory time and again, and betrayal had driven him from his first empire against his will.

And so, in the year 3350, Chrono-nik began experimenting with new types of Zone Portal devices, with the hope of being able to open a portal directly into another Zone without passing through the Cosmic Interstate. This would allow for surprise attacks on those worlds aware of the Cosmic Interstate, but more importantly it would allow him to reach distant Zones quickly, hopefully speeding up the search for his birth world.

In 3355 one of Chrono-nik's zone experiments produced a result which initially surprised him but upon further reflection he should have expected (at least given his memories of the most recent version of his home-world's timeline): from the year 3235 of a distant Mobius, Sonic, Sally, Robotnik, and some Swat-bots were summoned to his capitol city.

A squad of Eon Bots apprehended the trio and destroyed the Swat-bots. The prisoners were taken to a long unused (and no-longer maintained) detainment center, but soon managed to escape from it. Deciding to let history repeat itself, Chrono-nik cleared out all the guards and most of the Research-bots and Science-bots from the Zone Portal Research facility, and allowed Sonic, Sally, and Robotnik to enter with only a tiny bit of token resistance.

As soon as they had returned home through the portal, the Science-bots tried to undo the sabotage Robotnik had done to the Portal device, but it was too late. From his command center Chrono-nik watched the facility explode with only a touch of annoyance. It would be easy enough to rebuild the Inter-dimensional Zone Portal Generator, and he had copied the coordinates of the world the group had been summoned from long before they reached the facility.

As soon as the new Generator was complete, he sent a team of infiltration units back to his home world to investigate it, with particular focus on the year 3235.

They returned shortly with a great deal of data on his struggles against Sonic, and confirmation of his suspicions that Snivley had been responsible for the sabotage of the Ultimate Annihilator. However, they also revealed that he had more enemies than he had suspected, such as the secret Echidna cabal known as the Brotherhood of Guardians, the immortal mastermind Mammoth Mogul, and the god-like Ancient Walkers.

This last threat concerned him the most, enough so that he put his plans of returning home on hold while he sought to increase his mystical powers enough that even the Ancient Walkers would not be able to thwart his plans.

STH * STH * STH

 _Tyrant of Worlds_

In his adopted Zone, planet after planet fell to Chrono-nik's forces. Some alien species made valiant efforts to resist him, but the only attempts at resistance he allowed to get off the ground were ones that were doomed to fail – and when he crushed them he made sure there were survivors to spread the word of his invincible power. Any world that was a potential threat, he used time travel to conquer before they were powerful enough to threaten him.

At the same time, his forces also spread out across the Cosmic Interstate, conquering other Mobiuses (by whatever name; often that name was "Earth"), and from those planets spreading out to other planets in those Zones.

Chrono-nik enhanced his body with alien technology and the energies of mystical artifacts from hundreds of worlds. So great did his power grow that his opponents began to fear him as a malevolent god.

Over a thousand years had passed on his adopted Mobius by the time Chrono-nik took control of the last inhabited planet in its Galaxy, and only then did he feel ready to return to the Zone of his birth. And yet, over that time his hatred for Sonic had only grown. It would not be enough to simply kill or roboticize him; he must be made to truly suffer.

Chrono-nik retrieved the Chrono-bots from shortly after they had been deactivated. He repaired and upgraded them, then reactivated them and spelled out to them their part in his plan to get revenge on Sonic. He headed through the Zone Portal with them, for he also had parts to play in the coming drama, and before the plan could begin he must first take care of the only real threat to its' completion.

The group arrived in the badlands several weeks before the Ultimate Annihilator incident, well outside the range of Robotnik's surveillance equipment. The Chrono-bots headed out to perform their tasks, while Chrono-nik used his temporal abilities to teleport to the Impact Crater in Downuda, shortly after Tails and Knuckles visited it to seek guidance on how to save King Acorn. As he suspected traces of a connection between that world and the plane of existence within which the Ancient Walkers resided remained.

Chrono-nik tore open a door to the realm of the Walkers, and stepped through. The world he entered would have been incomprehensible at best to all but the most mystically advanced mortals, but Chrono-nik's mystical research had prepared him for what he found, and thanks to his custom neruo-processors and the Chaos Energy which flowed through his body, he felt as at home there as the Walkers themselves.

Chrono-nik found the Walkers waiting for him.

"Long have we foreseen thy coming, Enslaver of Time. Heed our warning well; should thou continue on thy quest for vengeance, thou shall sow the seeds of thine own destruction. However, it is not too late to save thyself; depart from this world with thy automatons and never disturb it again, and thy empire may yet be eternal."

"Bah! Do you really expect me to fall for your mind games – or your threats? You're just dinosaurs who know a little bit about manipulating Chaos Energy. What do you know about the future, or about true power? I am Chrono-nik, Master of Time and conqueror of over a thousand worlds across over a dozen dimensional zones. History is mine to shape as I so please - and I say the time has come for you to die."

"If that is thy will, then attack, and we shall see which of us is truly the master of this world's fate."

Chrono-nik gathered his mystical energies, and fired a blast of energy powerful enough to destroy a city at the Ancient Walkers. The Ancient Walkers responded with a mystical shield, and the entire mystical realm shuddered with the force of Chrono-nik's attack impacting it. The Walkers then responded with their own mystical attack, which Chrono-nik dodged.

The battle lasted an eternity, and yet it lasted no time at all. Not all attacks were blocked or dodged, and Chrono-nik's armor was cracked and shattered in the melee, as were the Ancient Walkers' masks. When Chrono-nik looked upon the flesh-and-blood Saurian forms of the Ancient Walkers, he knew that victory was his. Even as Chrono-nik and the Walkers' magic remained locked in a perpetual stalemate, Chrono-nik reconfigured his arm to reveal a laser canon, and fired three non-magical laser blasts in rapid succession, one at each of the Walkers.

Around the world mystically attuned beings felt the world shift under them, as one of the pillars of reality was shattered.

And in the Impact Crater, Chrono-nik appeared again, a fraction of a second after he had disappeared, his body badly damaged, but already repairing itself. He smiled malevolently, and gave a maniacal laugh. At last, this world truly belonged to him.

Now, it was time to have some fun.


	3. Chrono-nik's Revenge

**Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Part III: Chrono-nik's Revenge**

 _The Game Continues_

Following the Ultimate Annihilator backfire, Sonic woke up in the hospital in Knothole, where Rotor informed him that the village had not been destroyed after all, just pushed into a "pocket-zone" with only a tenuous connection to Mobius. Dr. Quack explained to Sonic that Robotnik had found Knothole by tracing the energies of the Dream Watcher. Robotnik had then kidnapped Dr. Quack's family and had the King replaced with an android duplicate; he had threatened to torture and kill them if Dr. Quack didn't play along with the deception.

Sally's last mission to Robotropolis had been Robotnik's plan, including her death at the hands of a robotic doppelganger of Sonic. However, she had not in fact been killed by the fall – something Dr. Quack kept a secret from Robotnik. Dr. Quack also saw Snively sabotaging the UA so that the main beam would be relatively harmless but it would backfire on Robotnik and kill him; for this reason Quack decided to continue to keep silent despite the threat to the lives of the entire population of the village.

With Robotnik dead, Quack had revealed the situation to the remaining Freedom Fighters (Tails, Rotor, and Dulcy) and the other resistance leaders present (Geoffrey St. John and Lupe the Wolf); they had conducted a rescue mission in which they retrieved from Robotropolis not only Dr. Quack's family, but King Acorn and the unconscious Sonic himself.

As for Sally, she was now in a healing stasis tube and should be mostly healed by now; upon learning this Sonic raced to the tube and awoke her.

However, it soon became clear the Freedom Fighters couldn't relax just yet – Bunnie and Antoine were missing, and without Rotor's EMP treatments Bunnie didn't have much time left before she was completely roboticized! A little investigation determined that they had been sent to Downunda; the other Freedom Fighters quickly prepared for the journey to rescue them.

STH * STH * STH

 _Breakdown in Downunda_

In Knothole, Sonic, Sally, Tails, and Rotor commandeered the ship Drago had been planing on using to ship more prisoners to Downunda. Rotor packed some equipment on board, and they headed for Downunda, to rescue Bunnie and Antoine.

After reaching the Impact Crater, they broke into the Slave Mining Compound. The first line of defense was a contingent of Com-bots; tough, but nothing the Freedom Fighters hadn't faced before. However, when the Com-bots proved insufficient to stop the Freedom Fighters, Crocbot attacked them himself, accompanied by a group of powerful robots, which the Freedom Fighters were shocked to recognize as Bunnie and the Downunda Freedom Fighters, now completely roboticized and weaponized!

Crocbot explained that he had noticed that Bunnie was growing more mechanical with time. Curious about this, he had examined her and discovered her nanites. Studying the nanites, he learned how to reprogram them so that the robots they created would be loyal to him; he then reprogrammed Bunnie's nanites and infected the Downunda Freedom Fighters with reprogrammed nanites as well. Now, with the nanites at his command, he planned to roboticize every living thing on the planet and reprogram all other robots to obey him, becoming a more powerful ruler than Robotnik had ever been.

The Freedom Fighters were reluctant to fight their friends, but knew that it was the only way to rescue them - and prevent the world from falling into Crocbot's hands. Crocbot and his weaponized robot slaves were just as powerful as Com-bots, and the Freedom Fighters were handicapped fighting them as they didn't want to destroy their friends. However, Sonic and Sally were willing to damage them to win, and eventually were able to disable them. Crocbot fell shortly afterward.

The Freedom Fighters freed the remaining flesh-and-blood slaves in the mine, including Antoine. They then brought the robot slaves back to their shuttle, where Rotor attempted to install Neuro-Overriders in them. Unfortunately, their neural systems were resistant to the Overriders, and Rotor was unable to restore their free will. He put the robots in a suspended state, and secured them for transport back to Knothole; he'd have to study them more in his lab if he was to free them.

STH * STH * STH

 _Arrival_

In Robotropolis, Snively was working on his plans for world domination when blue electricity swept through the room, converging at seven points, and then exploding into blue fire and smoke, heralding the arrival of Chrono-nik and his six remaining Chrono-bots. Chrono-nik congratulated Snively on his ingenuity in sabotaging the Ultimate Annihilator, but revealed that his plan to assassinate Robotnik had failed.

Simply roboticizing Snively and sending him to work in Chrono-nik's factories was too good a fate for Snively; he would have to die, painfully. Luckily for Snively, Chrono-nik had bigger fish to fry, so Snively's suffering wouldn't last _too_ long...

STH * STH * STH

 _Setbacks_

Rotor and Sir Charles' examination of Bunnie and the Downunda Freedom Fighters revealed that their neural circuitry and software contained powerful defenses against their wills being restored; it might take them years to figure out a way around them. Deroboticizing them also wasn't an option at the moment, as the robots were incompatible with all known types of deroboticizer. Rotor did think that with a little bit of work he could reprogram the robots to serve someone of his choosing (such as Sally) rather than Crocbot, but Sally wasn't sure she was comfortable with that idea.

STH * STH * STH

 _New Management_

A few days later, Sally led the Freedom Fighters, the Substitute Freedom Fighters, Sir Charles, Geoffrey St. John and some of his Rebel Underground, and Lupe and the Wolf Pack to survey the city in preparation for reclaiming it. The city seemed shut down and abandoned - but as they approached Robotnik's headquarters, they were ambushed by a group of Swat-bots. Even as the Freedom Fighters fought back, six new robots emerged from the building - the Chrono-bots.

The Chrono-bots informed the group that the planet now belonged to Chrono-nik, and that he had placed the Chrono-bots in charge of its incorporation into his inter-zonal Empire. Sonic had already refused the chance to surrender to Chrono-nik, but the others had a choice: they could surrender now and serve Chrono-nik for eternity, or they could resist and suffer alongside Sonic. Everyone present chose to continue to fight.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if the Chrono-bot the Freedom Fighters had fought before had been holding back, for none of the assembled fighters could lay a hand on the Chrono-bots. With injuries mounting up and their defeat seeming inevitable, Sally signaled a retreat. However, even as they fled the Chrono-bots fired a number of darts at the group, striking Rotor, Cyril, Hamlin, Arlo, Penelope, Dylan, and several of the Wolf Pack and Rebel Underground.

As circuitry and armor plating began spreading across those struck, it quickly became obvious that not only were these nanite-roboticizer darts, but that this batch of nanites was designed to roboticize much faster than the ones that had transformed Bunnie. Even with Sonic using his speed to help evacuate everyone, by the time the group had made it out of the city those struck by the darts had been completely roboticized. The new robots quickly turned on their friends, bringing the retreat to a halt as a new battle began.

A small army of Swat-bots soon began marching out of the city towards the group, with the Chrono-bots in the lead. Sally reluctantly ordered everyone to abandon their newly roboticized teammates and continue their retreat; Sonic and Tails protested this command, but eventually gave in.

STH * STH * STH

 _A Wizard, a Sword, and an Army of Darkness_

On the Floating Island, after much searching through the lair of the Sorcerer and Enchantress, Knuckles stumbled upon a clue leading him to another evil magic user – the wizard Mathias Poe. With Archimedes' help, Knuckles defeated the wizard – and among his collection of magical artifacts discovered the Sword of Acorns.

However, before Knuckles could contact the Freedom Fighters, an army of dark-cloaked cyborgs invaded the island. Knuckles hid the sword and charged into battle. Knuckles soon learned that the army was the Dark Legion, a group of Echidnas who had refused to give up technology centuries ago when the rest of Echidna civilization did; they had returned to reclaim the island for themselves. With the help of the Chaotix and a rogue Legionnaire named Julie-Su, Knuckles defeated the Legion Grandmaster Kragok and blew up the main Legion base, driving the Legion off for now.

Knuckles retrieved the Sword of Acorns from its' hiding place, and headed for Knothole with it, accompanied by Julie-Su.

Little did they know that while Knuckles had been fighting the Legion, Mammoth Mogul had stolen the Sword of Acorns and replaced it with a fake...

STH * STH * STH

 _The Crystal King_

Meanwhile, King Acorn regained consciousness, though his body remained fully crystalized. He seemed to be himself once more, though he was a bit more irritable than Sally remembered from when she was a child. Too weak to walk or remain awake for long periods, he left command of the "Kingdom" in Sally's hand – but he insisted that she devote all of her attention to reclaiming Mobotropolis.

Shortly after this, Knuckles and Julie-Su arrived in Knothole to deliver the Sword of Acorns. Sally was overjoyed, but what at first looked to be a ray of hope soon proved to be anything but. As soon as King Acorn's hand closed around the hilt of the Sword he declared it a fake, and accused Knuckles of trying to keep the real sword for himself. Sally assured her father that Knuckles was trustworthy, and begged him to let her use the mystical incantation she and Chuck had uncovered which was supposed to open the way to the Crown of Acorns. The King agreed, but warned her he already knew it was futile.

The King proved to be right about the incantation doing nothing, and when Sir Charles examined the sword, he determined that the King was right about it being a fake as well. Sally however refused to believe that Knuckles would betray them, and asked him to continue his search for the real Sword.

Knuckles promised to do what he could, but with the Dark Legion at large on the Island he wasn't sure how much time he'd have – and he'd also used up all his leads.

Knuckles and Julie-Su headed back to the Floating Island, while Sally began planning to reclaim Robotropolis.

STH * STH * STH

 _Lost Paradise_

Knuckles and Julie-Su returned to the Floating Island only to learn it had been suffering a series of earthquakes, and many people had seen a city appearing and disappearing in the Marble Zone. Knuckles, Julie-Su, and Archimedes investigated the city and discovered it to be Echidnaopolis, the long lost city of the Echidnas - and it was still inhabited.

Knuckles and company were soon discovered by the EST (Echidna Security Team), who arranged for Knuckles to meet with Hawking, an ancient Guardian who had saved the city from destruction in a nuclear war with the Dingoes centuries ago by sealing it inside a pocket-zone. Now thanks to the Ultimate Annihilator, the zone had become unstable, and Hawking was preparing to return the city to the Floating Island.

Unfortunately, the Dingo City was also in a pocket zone, one which would be destroyed when Hawking restored Echidnaopolis. Hawking couldn't in good conscience destroy an entire people like that, so he enlisted Knuckles' help to evacuate the Dingo City. The mission did not go without incident, but in the end both Echidnaopolis and the Dingoes were safely returned to the Floating Island. Unfortunately, the strain of the magic he had to perform was too much for Hawking, and he fell into a coma; he was taken to Haven, a secret facility well outside the city, for medical treatment.

In the aftermath of this adventure, Knuckles was reunited with his mother Lara-Le for the first time in over ten years. It was a bit awkward, but still a happy reunion.

STH * STH * STH

 _Running to Stand Still_

Though they'd suffered several heavy blows, the Freedom Fighters weren't about to give up. Promoting Larry Lynx to the main Knothole Freedom Fighter group, and pairing that group with the Wolf Pack to make up for each team's missing members, Sally and Lupe led several forays into Robotropolis to see what changes the Chrono-bots had made and search for targets they could strike to weaken the robots' hold on the city.

A few days after the disastrous attempt to reclaim Robotropolis, Sir Charles took Sally aside to inform her that the energy wave released by the Ultimate Annihilator had freed the minds of many of the roboticized Mobians in Robotropolis. They were currently hiding in the tunnels under the city, but with the city once more in enemy hands (and much more ruthless and efficient hands than Robotnik) Chuck was concerned it wouldn't stay safe there for long. He wanted permission to allow the free robotic Mobians to move to Knothole.

Sally wasn't happy Chuck had kept this from her, but agreed to consider his request. She would need to get her father's approval though... Unfortunately, the King wouldn't hear of it; not only was allowing robots into Knothole a security risk to begin with, but in order to fit them all they'd need to expand the village beyond the pocket-zone that it was currently contained in, increasing the chance of the village being discovered by their new enemies.

Sally was not happy to pass this on to Chuck, but she did suggest that the Freedom Fighters and free robot Mobians keep in contact, and that those who were willing should work together.

The next time the Freedom Fighters were in the city, Chuck introduced them to some of his robot friends... Sonic was not prepared to discover his parents among them – particularly as he'd always thought them dead. Unable to take this revelation, Sonic ran off; it fell to Tails to follow him and talk some sense into him. When Sonic returned he apologized to his parents and greeted them warmly; however he had some harsh words for his Uncle for keeping the fact that they were alive a secret all these years.

STH * STH * STH

 _Khan_

On one mission, Sally used Nicole to hack into the Robotropolis computer network in hopes of learning more about the Chrono-bots. While security on the network was tighter than it used to be, there was only one new bit of useful information: the Chrono-bots had ordered a group of Swat-bots and Worker-bots (including Rotor, the roboticized Substitute Freedom Fighters, and the lost Wolf Pack members) to excavate a storage device Robotnik had buried on the edge of the forest over a decade ago. As to what was in the storage device, the order didn't say.

Sally immediately began planning for how they could rescue their friends and stop the Chrono-bots from acquiring whatever was in that device in one attack. It was Antoine who pointed out that it seemed just a little too convenient that their friends were the ones assigned to this mission so far away from Robotropolis. Already blaming herself for the loss of their friends, the realization that she'd almost walked them into a trap was a huge blow to Sally's confidence, and she wound up deferring to Lupe to plan their response.

Under Lupe's leadership the group carefully scouted out the dig site and the surrounding area; they were able to determine that a squad of Com-bots were hidden around the site, and that their friends had also been weaponized and would likely prove a challenge to take down.

Unfortunately, the time the team took scouting the area gave the robots the time they needed to finish digging up the storage container and open it, revealing the cyborg simian code-named "Monkey Khan". As it turned out, Robotnik had sealed Khan away because he had been unable to control him. Seeking revenge on Robotnik, Khan now began attacking the Swat-bots and Worker-bots – and it quickly became apparent he had the upper hand.

Abandoning Lupe's plan, the Freedom Fighters rushed in to rescue their friends. Unfortunately, this made Khan target them as well, even as the robots attacked Khan and Freedom Fighter alike. By the time the Freedom Fighters managed to convince Khan that the Worker-bots were enslaved Mobians, both the Freedom Fighters and the Worker-bots were in bad shape. And then the Com-bots attacked.

Even for the mighty Monkey Khan, a squad of Elite Com-bots proved a challenge, and while he triumphed in the end it was not without injury. Monkey Khan and the Freedom Fighters gathered up the damaged Worker-bots, and brought them back to Knothole.

As the roboticized Mobians were brought to what had been Rotor's Lab (Sir Charles still used it, but no one felt right calling it "Chuck's Lab"), a villager by the name of Tusk Luza criticized them for getting beat up trying to bring home a bunch of "Robians" still loyal to Chrono-nik.

STH * STH * STH

 _Gods of Chaos_

Initiating one of the final steps in his master plan, Mammoth Mogul summoned Enerjak to the Floating Island, arranging for him to encounter the Dark Legion. The Legion had long idolized Enerjak's mortal form, Dimitri, and quickly bowed down to him.

Some time later, Knuckles and Julie-Su discovered that the Chaotix were missing. They searched for them for a while, but Enerjak found Knuckles and Julie-Su first. Enerjak brought Julie-Su back to the Dark Legion, then teleported Knuckles to various inhospitable places to taunt and torture him. Knuckles proved too resilient to be affected by Enerjak's games, so Enerjak resorted to simply disintegrating him.

Meanwhile, the Dark Legion brought the Chaotix and Julie-Su out a ways into the desert. They secured Mighty to a stake with chains, tied Espio, Vector, and Julie-Su to their own stakes with ropes (they also disabled Julie-Su's cybernetics), and sealed Archimedes and Charmy in an airtight teleport-proof box; Kragok told them that as punishment for their defiance of the Legion they would all die slow, agonizing deaths. Leaving them to their fates, the Legion then prepared for a full-scale invasion of Echidnaopolis; as soon as Enerjak arrived and opened a mystic gateway to the city, the army set out.

The Dark Legion invasion of Echidnaopolis was brutal, and the EST were hard pressed to hold them off even with Enerjak sitting back and watching.

In Haven, Locke and Sabre (Knuckles' father and grandfather) had lost track of Knuckles when Enerjak first teleported away with him, and were unaware of his demise. However, even without this information, they knew that things had reached a crisis point, and they decided they needed assistance. Locke sent a message to the Freedom Fighters, using the facility's computers to disguise his voice and appearance as Knuckles, and asking them for help.

Sonic, Sally, Tails, Larry, Monkey Khan, and Geoffrey decided to go help Knuckles. Lupe decided to stay in Knothole with her injured pack members.

In Echidnaopolis, Enerjak was just about to step in to assist his troops, when Mammoth Mogul teleported him high above the city and used the Sword of Acorns to drain all of his Chaos Energy, transforming into Master Mogul. Helpless, the elderly Dimitri fell to the street below, dying on impact.

The Freedom Fighters arrived in the city to find the Dark Legion in disarray. But before they could rendezvous with the EST to ask what they could do to help, in a flash of emerald light Master Mogul appeared. He ordered everyone to bow down in worship to him or suffer for eternity. When Sonic and Tails responded by attacking him, he blasted them with green lightning, causing them to vanish.

The others now engaged him, but even Monkey Khan couldn't hurt him. They all soon found themselves once more battered and bruised with nothing to show for it. Kragok rallied those surviving Dark Legion who had not fled or been arrested, and formed a temporary truce with the EST to take on this threat, but Master Mogul blew them all away in a single blast of emerald energy (Kragok and many others in both groups were killed instantly).

Moments after this disastrous attack, there was a blast of blue fire, lightning, and smoke, and Chrono-nik appeared in front of Master Mogul. Chrono-nik informed Mogul that Mobius belonged to Chrono-nik, and if Mogul wished to rule it he would have to bow down to Chrono-nik and submit to complete roboticization. Master Mogul scoffed at this and attacked Chrono-nik... only to discover to his shock that all his vast powers had no effect on Chrono-nik. Chrono-nik chided him for his attack, "Did you really think you could harm the one who slew the Ancient Walkers?"

Mogul refused to believe Chrono-nik's claim, but changed tactics, attempting to use the Sword of Acorns to drain Chrono-nik. However, Chrono-nik easily reversed the flow of the energy, draining the power from Master Mogul instead. Mogul tried to pull away or let go of the Sword, to no avail. He was reduced to Mammoth Mogul, then to a withered old husk, then finally to nothing but dry bones which fell to the ground lifelessly.

Chrono-nik looked over those assembled, gave a self-satisfied smile, then vanished as he had came, taking the Sword of Acorns with him.

Sally was shattered to loose the only hope for her father to return to normal; everyone else was disturbed by how easily Chrono-nik had defeated someone who had himself seemed invincible. Watching from Haven, Locke was particularly disturbed by Chrono-nik's claim to have killed the Ancient Walkers.

Sally used Nicole to scan the area where Sonic and Tails had disappeared. There were traces of Zone Portal energy, so it was possible they had been sent to another Zone rather than killed; however the portal was completely closed, and the trace was too weak for any of Rotor's experimental Zone Portal machinery to work with.

With nothing more they could do there, the demoralized Freedom Fighters headed home.

Shortly after this, Locke ventured to the Dark Legion's now-abandoned staging ground in search of clues as to Knuckles' whereabouts. A terrible hunch told him to investigate the buzzards circling over a spot in the desert not too far from the staging ground; what he found made him almost wish he hadn't. Knuckles' body was not among those he found the buzzards squabbling over, but that didn't make the sight any less disturbing.

Locke retrieved what was left of the Chaotix' remains, and arranged for them to be returned to their families. As for Knuckles, Locke never found out what happened to him; Sabre tried to convince Locke that Enerjak must have killed him, but Locke never believed it.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Fall of Knothole_

When the Freedom Fighters returned to Knothole, they found it devastated. Many buildings and trees were smoking or on fire, others completely destroyed, and the remains of many Swat-bots and a handful of villagers lay in the streets.

However, one body was not dead - as they approached, Lupe groaned and opened her eyes. In a weak voice she told them that the Chrono-bots had attacked the village with an army of Swat-bots. She and many of the villagers had fought back bravely, but in the end those who refused to surrender were killed or nanite-roboticized, and the rest were taken back to Robotropolis for traditional roboticization. Lupe had been forced to watch as the rest of her pack were nanite-roboticized and taken from her.

Lupe had only been allowed to live because by the time the fighting died down she was too injured to fight on, and the Chrono-bots wanted someone to deliver a message to the Freedom Fighters: The Chrono-bots were waiting for them in Robotroplis.

The Freedom Fighters rushed Lupe to the hospital and tended to her injuries as best they could, but without professional care her prognosis looked grim.

Almost the entire team agreed that they had to make an attempt to rescue their friends and the other villagers, even though it might already be too late and it was definitely a trap. Even Antoine was willing to take the risk. Only Monkey Khan argued that it was futile and they were likely to just loose even more of the group, but when he realized he couldn't change their minds he decided to come along anyway.

Before leaving they did a quick survey of the town, to make sure there weren't any other survivors. In the process they discovered that Rotor's Lab had been broken into, and the captive Robians taken. Far worse, in the King's hut, they found the King's crystal body shattered into countless pieces. Sally fell to her knees and wept at the sight.

After several minutes Geoffrey reluctantly reminded Sally that they had living people depending on the Freedom Fighters to save them; they could mourn the dead later.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Spider's Parlor_

Sally, Antoine, Larry, Geoffrey, and Monkey Khan headed to Robotroplis. They made contact with the free Robians, and several of the Robians joined their rescue party.

The group was able to sneak into the Detention Facility without triggering the expected trap, but they discovered that many of the villagers had already been roboticized, and the captured Robians reprogrammed to serve Chrono-nik - even Sir Charles. The group began breaking those who had not been roboticized out of their cells, though this raised enough of a commotion that the guards soon attacked, forcing Khan, Geoffrey, Antoine, and the Robian fighters to focus on fighting rather than freeing the prisoners. Among those they were able to free was Dulcy, who was a great aid to the fighters.

Once everyone was free, they made their way out of the facility. It was only when they were all out in the streets that the six Chrono-bots attacked, along with a squad of Com-bots and Swat-bots. The Freedom Fighters fought with everything they had, determined to not let the villagers come to harm. However, without Sonic on their side they had even less of a chance of winning against the Chrono-bots.

It soon became clear drastic measures would have to be taken if any of them were to make it out of the city alive and free. Monkey Khan told the Freedom Fighters to get everyone out of the city; he'd hold the Chrono-bots off. Sally told him "no", but he reminded her that he didn't take orders from her. Antoine gave Khan a salute as the group began their retreat.

The Chrono-bots tried firing nanite-roboticizer darts at Khan, but his systems were incompatible with them, and while he was slowed down and felt a bit sick as his body fought the nanites off, he was not transformed. In response to this, the Chrono-bots gave up on recruiting him to their side, and switched to lasers. As he fell to the street, his life fading, he smiled; even if it had cost him, he had saved Sally.

As soon as the group were out of the city, Antoine and Geoffrey raised the question of where they were going to go – Knothole was certainly not safe any more. Sally mentioned that Cyril the Eagle's family lived in an extensive series of caves up in the mountains; with the family's permission Sally had already made preparations for the caves to serve as a fall-back location. And so the group headed to the mountain caves.

Sally was little help in getting "New Knothole" set up, as she was too caught up in her grief. It fell to Antoine and Geoffrey to organize things, including sending a small group back to Knothole to retrieve Lupe and any supplies they could salvage. (This mission was made much more difficult by an out-of season snow-storm which hit the Great Forest without warning.)

Among those lost in the Fall of Knothole were Rosie, Dr. Quack, and all of the remaining Wolfpack save Lupe. Lupe herself died of her injuries within a few days.

STH * STH * STH

 _Uncovered_

In Haven, Knuckles' father Locke and grandfather Sabre called a full meeting of the Brotherhood of Guardians. Within the next few days, their kin (and fellow former Guardians of the Floating Island) Thunderhawk, Sojourner, Tobor, and Spectre arrived.

The group gathered together in a conference room and began discussing recent events and the state of the world. All of them were troubled by how the Chrono-bots had been working to consolidate their power, and by how powerful Chrono-nik appeared to be. They resolved to work to undermine the Chrono-bots, though how to oppose Chrono-nik himself was a tougher question.

However, there was another issue to discuss, much more personal to the Brotherhood – Knuckles' disappearance. By now most of the Brotherhood had come to the conclusion that Knuckles was dead, and Spectre went so far as to suggest Locke ought to start thinking about siring a new heir. However, Locke wouldn't hear any of it. The most the others were able to do was convince Locke to take up the mantle of Guardian again for the time being.

The next day, an Echidna with simple hand-made clothes and cybernetic eyes arrived on the island. Exploring the Island, he was surprised to discover Echidnaopolis once more on the Island. Meanwhile, in Haven, Tobor spotted the Echidna on a feed from a surveillance camera. Recognizing him, and not wanting the others to spot him, Tobor secretly activated a measure he'd put in place some time ago, knocking out the power to the entire facility.

Meanwhile on the surface of Mobius, a small fleet of hovercraft arose from under the ocean surface, while other aerial vehicles flew in from their hiding places behind a nearby mountain range. They all converged on the Floating Island, many of them landing on the Island in order to let an army of Swat-bots, Com-bots, and automated tanks disembark.

Some time later, the mysterious echidna entered Haven. He soon encountered Thunderhawk, Sojourner Spectre, and Tobor. The first three were shocked to realize this intruder was nearly indistinguishable from Tobor aside from the differing clothing and cybernetics. Tobor panicked, and fired a laser blast from his visor at his doppelganger, but having begun to suspect what was going on Spectre tackled Tobor, throwing off his aim.

After a brief scuffle with Spectre, Tobor fled. It was only at this point that the stranger was able to explain that he was the real Tobor; the echidna who had been posing as him for over a century was actually the former Dark Legion Grandmaster, Moritori Rex, who happened to be nearly indistinguishable from Tobor. Having seen the two side-by side for the first time, Spectre recognized the stranger as his father, and told the others he believed the tale.

The group chased after Moritori, but he managed to escape.

Everyone returned to the Control Center and Tobor began telling his story in more detail. However, he was interrupted when the power came back on, followed moments later by the surveillance systems, revealing the invading robot army.

STH * STH * STH

 _In the Line of Duty_

The Chrono-nik forces on the island had split into two groups, each led by a Chrono-bot; one was heading for the Chaos Chamber (the Brotherhood assumed the robots were tracking the Emerald's power, but in fact Robotnik had left a record of the Chaos Chamber's location in his files), while the other was heading for Haven (Sabre speculated that they had detected it while the power was down and with it the cloaking device). In contrast to the Dark Legion, the robot army ignored Echidnaopolis entirely.

It was decided to split the group to face this threat. Thunderhawk and Sojourner headed out to confront the robots heading for Haven, Tobor and Spectre headed to intercept the robots heading for the Chaos Chamber, Locke went to request aid from the EST, and Sabre stayed in the Control Center to man Haven's defenses and coordinate things.

As they made their way to the invasion force, Spectre apologized to Tobor for never realizing Moritori Rex had taken Tobor's place. Tobor forgave his son.

The two Brotherhood groups on the attack were able to take out dozens of Swat-bots in minutes. Com-bots proved a challenge, but the former Guardians' magic proved superior to these battle robots as well. Even the Chrono-bots seemed like they might fall to the Guardians - until each Chrono-bot called in two more. Whereas two Guardians against a single Chrono-bot was a battle in the Guardians' favor, three Chrono-bots against two Guardians was to the Chrono-bots' advantage. Worse, while the Chrono-bots held the Guardians off, their troops were able to advance.

The EST were in bad shape after the battles with the Dark Legion and Master Mogul, but they were able to spare a small contingent of troops to help defend the Chaos Chamber. Shortly, Locke and the EST troops took on the advance line of the robot troops heading for the Chamber, bringing the advance to a standstill.

As the day wore on, the Chrono-bots began to suffer heavy damage. Rather than face destruction, they retreated, only to return within moments via time travel, fully repaired. The Guardians kept up the fight, but eventually began to grow tired. Thunderhawk and Sojourner retreated to Haven; Tobor and Spectre fell back to where Locke and the EST were fighting.

As the day turned to night, the robots continued marching relentlessly forward, while Locke' group grew more weary and injured, and was forced to fall back again and again.

Meanwhile, the other army smashed its' way through Haven's defenses and broke into the facility. The battle for Haven was brutal and lasted hours, but in the end the Chrono-bots slew Thunderhawk, Sojourner, and Sabre. For good measure they killed the comatose Hawking as well as a certain refugee from the Acorn Kingdom who the Brotherhood had been keeping in suspended animation for medical reasons.

Near the main entrance to the Chaos Chamber, Locke' group dug in, prepared to make a last stand. Assistance came from an unlikely source when Moritori Rex showed up with what remained of the Dark Legion; he didn't want to see Chrono-nik get his hands on the Chaos Emerald any more than they did. However, the tide shifted again when the other three Chrono-bots arrived and joined in the battle. (The other part of their army was still at Haven, but the Guardians and their allies were still outnumbered and outgunned.)

The Chrono-bots ganged up on the Guardians, slaying Tobor and badly injuring Spectre. Then one of the Chrono-bots broke through the defenses and into the Chaos Chamber. Locke followed after him, leaving the injured Spectre, the EST, and the Dark Legion to face five Chrono-bots.

The Chrono-bots slaughtered many of the EST and Dark Legion, and finished off Spectre. They then temporal-teleported away, leaving their troops to handle the remaining EST and Dark Legion.

Meanwhile, in the Chaos Chamber, Locke and Chrono-bot 6 did battle. Locke was a master of Chaos Energy manipulation, and this close to the Chaos Emerald was able to draw upon a great deal of Chaos Energy to aid him. The fight was still brutal, but Locke managed to badly damage the Chrono-bot. He was just about to strike the robot down, when in desperation the Chrono-bot teleported next to the Chaos Emerald and self-destructed. The shrapnel cracked the surface of the Emerald, while the temporal and mystic energies stored within the robot overloaded the Emerald. The resulting explosion tore a hole in the Island over a mile wide, completely annihilating the Chaos Chamber and every one and thing in or around it.

Without the Chaos Emerald, the Island fell to the water below. As it rapidly sunk, a small number of inhabitants were able to escape by swimming or flying (either under their own power or using boats and aircraft), but the vast majority were pulled under along with the island, and drowned. The Chrono-nik aircraft and hovercraft had already taken off before the Island sank, but the robot armies that they had deposited on the Island sank to the bottom of the ocean with the Island.

In Robotropolis, the five remaining Chrono-bots calculated the costs and results of their Floating Island campaign, and counted it successful. While it was true they had lost many troops including one of their own, the last beings capable of challenging their rule, the Brotherhood of Guardians, had been killed.

Complete victory in their quest to take control of this world was now assured.


	4. Days of Fury

**Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Part IV: Days of Fury**

 _You Can't Go Home Again_

Sonic and Tails found themselves on a large spiky rock floating in space. There was no sun or stars, and the depths of this reality were pitch black, but they could easily see other rocks floating in the distance, as well as what appeared to be planets, a long thin pink cloud, and glowing geometric shapes.

Suddenly, the rock they were on started trying to eat them. They fought the rock into submission, then Tails flew Sonic away from it just in case it revived.

As they traveled through the strange Zone, Sonic and Tails faced many other dangers. They had to sleep floating in space because everything solid was hostile, and they found themselves worrying about what they were going to eat or drink, as they could find no plants, animals, or even any water.

Of course, even more than food and water what they wanted most was a way home. After what felt to Sonic like a week but Tails insisted couldn't have been more than two days, they found a circle of blue energy large enough to pass through, and within it they could see a grassy field and beyond it a forest that looked like the Great Forest.

Desperately hoping this at last was their way home, the two passed through the circle. They fell to the ground in a field of dead grass and the occasional bramble, the circle closing behind them. They could now see that forest ahead of them was dying, most of the trees in it already dead.

Across the dead fields in the other direction was a huge city with many factories spewing smoke into the air; some of the buildings reminded Sonic of particular buildings in Robotropolis, but the city itself was bigger than Robotropolis, and there were also many unfamiliar buildings. The city extended out into the ocean, some towers rising from the water, with bridges connecting them.

Eventually, Sonic and Tails recognized enough landmarks to figure out that the city really was Robotropolis (though some of it appeared to have been flooded), and the dying forest the Great Forest. Sonic figured they must have wound up in the wrong Zone, but Tails had a bad feeling that wasn't what had happened.

They decided their best option was to head to Knothole, in the hopes someone there could help them figure out where they were and what was going on.

On the way through the forest, they were attacked by a Mobian-sized carnivorous plant; luckily Sonic's spin attack was able to cut through the plant.

They found a zone-boundary around Knothole, just like the one the Ultimate Annihilator had caused. Passing through one of the zone-portal entrances, they discovered the village in ruins. Most of the buildings had collapsed, and their timbers were rotting and covered in patches of moss. Exploring further they discovered that the remains of the more ruined buildings were charred, as if they had burnt down. They also found partially sunken into the dirt the rusting remains of a number of Swat-bots.

Tails gave voice to what they were both thinking: the village had been attacked and then left abandoned many years ago. He went on to add that he didn't think this was an alternate Zone, he thought that it was the future. Sonic didn't want to believe that this was their home Zone, but if it was then Sally had set up a fall-back spot in the Great Mountains, in the cave system used by Cyril's family; Sonic figured they should check there next.

On their trek to the Mountains, they encountered only a handful of animals, all of them hideous and apparently badly mutated. As they got further from the city they found more living plant life, but even the fields at the foot of the Mountains didn't look very healthy.

Finally, they entered into the caves, and found a thriving underground village. Everyone was shocked to see the two, and many of the villagers thought they were ghosts or robotic doppelgangers. The Freedom Fighters were summoned, and soon Antoine, a nearly adult Amy Rose, three teenage ducks, and a couple of Robians showed up. (Sonic recognized one of the Robians as Rudyard Polar Bear but didn't recognize the other.) Sonic and Tails explained what had happened; the Freedom Fighters demanded they answer a bunch of questions about the old days and show off their abilities before they believed Sonic and Tails were who they said they were.

The reunion was happy but a little bittersweet thanks to all the time Sonic and Tails had missed. It turned out ten years had passed, and the war against the Chrono-bots had gone badly; the Freedom Fighters had long ago all but given up hope of overthrowing Chrono-nik, and were mostly fighting just to survive.

Sonic asked where Sally was; Antoine assured him she was fine, she just wasn't in any shape to fight right now and they had been afraid Sonic and Tails had been enemies. The Freedom Fighters led Sonic and Tails to a comfortable meeting room, and shortly Sally arrived. It was immediately obvious why the Freedom Fighters hadn't wanted her fighting, as she was visibly pregnant.

Sally was overjoyed to see Sonic, but Sonic was a bit too shocked by her pregnancy to greet her with the same enthusiasm. The two of them headed to another room to talk privately; Sally explained that Rotor's Zone Portal device had been damaged when Knothole was destroyed, and she hadn't been able to rebuild it, not that she would have known how to find the Zone Sonic and Tails had been exiled to even if it worked. Her only choice had been to hope that Sonic and Tails would find their own way home, and she waited for him for several years. Eventually, however, she couldn't wait any longer, not for love, not when there was someone else who loved her...

Sonic demanded to know who she had married; Sally hesitated, and said she'd prefer he hear the whole story before she say... Sonic reluctantly agreed.

The two rejoined the others, and soon the Freedom Fighters began filling Sonic and Tails on what they had missed...

STH * STH * STH

 _The Lost Years_

As has already been told, following the battle with Master Mogul on the Floating Island, the Freedom Fighters returned to Knothole, only to find it in ruins. A dying Lupe had told them that the survivors of the attack had been taken to Robotropolis. The Freedom Fighters headed to Robotropolis and successfully rescued many of the villagers, but Monkey Khan died to allow the group to escape.

Once everyone had settled in to New Knothole, and all the most pressing business had been attended to, a memorial service was held for all those lost. Those who had died were buried in a valley not far from the village.

Guilt ridden and in mourning for her father and many of her friends, Sally suffered a bit of a breakdown; during this time Antoine stepped up as the leader of the Freedom Fighters. Geoffrey had been away from the Rebel Underground for too long, and he and Antoine clashed too much for them to work together as equals, so he said goodbye to Sally and headed back out west.

Antoine recruited Hershey the Cat into the Freedom Fighters to make up for Geoffrey's departure, bringing the team roster to Antoine, Larry, Dulcy, Hershey, and theoretically Sally. Amy begged to be allowed to join so she could follow in Sonic's footsteps; knowing they needed all the help they could get Antoine told her she could join but wouldn't be allowed to go on missions until she'd been thoroughly trained.

It was around this time that rumors reached Knothole that the Chrono-bots had attacked and sunk the Floating Island. From this point on, when the Chrono-bots appeared together there was only five of them; some speculated that one of the Chrono-bots had been destroyed in the fight for the Island.

For the next few months, as Sally recovered emotionally, Antoine led the Freedom Fighters well. The group thwarted several Chrono-bot plots, and caused some minor disruption to their operations, and all without suffering any further losses. When Sally finally took back command of the Freedom Fighters, she appointed Antoine as her second in command.

Meanwhile, the Chrono-bots tightened their hold on Robotropolis, even taking control of the underground sewers and tunnels, forcing the free Robians to flee. Sally allowed them to come live in Knothole; many of the organic villagers feared the Robians, and there was some tension at first, but Sally and Antoine were able to keep things from getting out of hand.

In 3236 Larry Lynx' luck failed him, and he was captured and roboticized. Hershey Cat was roboticized later that year. To make up for these losses, the Freedom Fighters recruited Jules and Bernadette Hedgehog; most of the other free Robians also chose to fight alongside the Freedom Fighters but did not officially join the "Knothole Freedom Fighters".

As the years passed, the weather grew more and more erratic and extreme, and the sea level began to rise. Sally blamed global warming caused by carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gasses released by Robotnik and Chrono-nik's factories; however the more religiously inclined spoke of the legends of the Days of Fury, a time of chaos and destruction which occurred whenever Nature had been too badly abused.

Meanwhile, the toxic chemicals released by Chrono-nik's factories as well as mining, drilling, and other activities of Chrono-nik's minions slowly killed off the Great Meadow and much of the Great Forest; reports from other resistance groups suggested the same sort of thing was happening around the world. Many of the animals and plants that did survive among all the toxins were horribly mutated.

In 3239, Dulcy, Jules, and Bernadette were all killed in one disastrous mission. Following this tragedy, the Freedom Fighters recruited the former bounty hunter Fiona Fox, as well as the free Robians Rudyard Polar Bear and Fanny Dupin. Additionally, the three Quack Kids (Hubert, Duane, and Louise), wanting revenge for the death of their father, began training to join the Freedom Fighters.

In response to the collapse of most ecosystems worldwide, many resistance groups took it upon themselves to build "Sanctuaries" where those life forms that couldn't handle the pollution might be protected and nurtured, in the hopes that one day it would be safe to return them to the wild.

One of these Sanctuaries was in a set of chambers below New Knothole. There were other Sanctuaries in the Western Desert (run by Geoffrey and his Rebel Underground), the Mysterious Cat Country, Sand Blast City, the Dragon Kingdom, and even the hidden Echidna city of Albion.

Over the years Sally and Antoine grew closer; finally in 3243 they got married. Late the following year they decided to have children; this might not be the best time to raise children, but if they waited for the war to end they might never have a chance.

Fiona Fox had fallen in battle earlier this past year, shortly after Sally stepped away from most missions due to her pregnancy. Thankfully, Hubert, Duane, and Louise were old enough to join the main team and keep the group's numbers up.

STH * STH * STH

 _Future Shock_

With that Sonic and Tails were more or less up to speed.

Sonic was a bit shocked that Sally married Antoine of all people, and a bit jealous of him, but he still congratulated them on finding some happiness in this mad world.

The fact that the planet was in such a bad shape, and they'd made no progress against the Chrono-bots disturbed Sonic far more than Sally's marriage. He couldn't help but think that if he'd been there he could have made a difference. Sonic remembered that once Robotnik had used a prototype time machine to temporarily exile him to the stone age, and that the Freedom Fighters had captured the device and used it to rescue him; he asked Sally what had become of it. Sally reminded him that it couldn't be be used to change history; at any rate it had been destroyed when Knothole was invaded.

Sonic then asked if there was any chance they could build their own time machine. Sally said it was theoretically possible, but she didn't know how and what little time of hers wasn't spent leading the Freedom Fighters and overseeing the village and Sanctuary she was devoting to trying to figure out how to free the minds of Nanite-Robians (without Rotor or Sir Charles to help, the task was taking far longer than Rotor had anticipated).

Sonic decided then and there that he would find a way to go back in time and fix all this, even if it meant he had to learn math and engineering and invent a time machine himself. However, even as he decided this he remembered the "future Sonic" that had visited them back before they retrieved the King from the Zone of Silence, and had to wonder if he would fare any better, or if history was merely repeating itself.

STH * STH * STH

 _Heroes Out of Time_

Everyone thought Sonic was joking when he talked about inventing a time machine, but true to his word he tracked down some tutors and began learning math and engineering. He also borrowed Nicole when she was available, and began learning physics from her. Learning subjects such as these proved to be one of the few things he was slow at, but he stubbornly kept at it.

In the mean time, Sonic and Tails both rejoined the Freedom Fighters. With Sonic out-of-date and Antoine the acting field leader of the Freedom Fighters, Sonic found himself serving under Antoine, which was quite awkward at first. He and Antoine butted heads a few times on their first few missions, but Sonic soon realized Antoine was now much more experienced than him and knew what he was doing, and learned to follow Antoine's lead.

Sonic and Tails were surprised on these early missions to realize that while Robotropolis had much tighter security these days, the robots and weapons in the Chrono-bots' army weren't all that much more advanced than what Robotnik had had under his command; the Chrono-bots themselves still outclassed any of the robots in their army. Furthermore, whenever the Freedom Fighters tried to strike at a vital piece of infrastructure, the Chrono-bots would personally show up to stop them with overwhelming force – but as soon as the Freedom Fighters retreated, the Chrono-bots would leave all the fighting to their minions, and would call off the chase as soon as the Freedom Fighters made it outside the city limits. It was almost as if the Chrono-bots were toying with them.

Sonic and Tails went on many missions with the Freedom Fighters, and Sonic in particular was a great assistance in fighting the enemy robots – however Sonic could tell that at best their strikes were giving the worker bots a bit of repair work to do; they weren't making any progress towards deposing the Chrono-bots. Sonic began to grow impatient, and tried to convince Sally and Antoine to strike harder against targets that mattered. Sally and Antoine were forced to remind Sonic that they were playing for keeps – they had learned the hard way that every time they went out on a mission, they might not come back. They couldn't afford to fight as recklessly as they used to.

STH * STH * STH

 _Judgment Day_

A few weeks before Sally was due to give birth, the Freedom Fighters' spies learned that the Chrono-bots had been stockpiling a large arsenal of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, including several stored in silos within Robotropolis itself, and within a few days planned on unleashing them upon the world. While many of their targets were strategic ones (such as resistance groups whose general locations were known to the Chrono-bots), their primary goal was to detonate so many nuclear bombs that dangerous levels of fallout would be spread across the globe and a Nuclear Winter would be created, killing off most of the planet's life.

The plot had been discovered due to some unencrypted transmissions which the Freedom Fighters' agents had intercepted; further details had been learned from files on the Robotropolis computer network which they had been able to access due to a hole in the city's digital security introduced in a recent software update. Security this lax was uncharacteristic of the Chrono-bots, and Sally and Antoine strongly suspected it was a trap. However, with the fate of the world potentially at stake, they couldn't simply ignore it...

Antoine put together a team comprised of himself, Sonic, Tails, and the Quacks (as well as Nicole) to put a stop to this plot; he left behind Amy and the Robians to defend Knothole and carry on the fight if things went wrong.

The group made their way into the city, sneaking past the various guards and defenses. They tried hooking Nicole into the city's computer network from one of the less guarded terminals; however the digital defenses were significantly greater than normal, and Nicole couldn't make any headway. She suggested that she might be able to take control of the missiles from the main control room - but the physical defenses they'd have to face to get there would be extreme.

Antoine was reluctant to take the risk, but Sonic was excited by the prospect, and the Quacks felt the same. With no better plan, and not willing to abort the mission with the world at stake, Antoine hesitantly agreed to the plan.

The team headed to the center of the city and broke into the command center. The security was tight, but with a great deal of effort they managed to make it into the building without being detected. The inside of the building was even more of a nightmare, with laser tripwires, security cameras scanning every hallway, and patrols of Elite Swat-bots and Com-bots everywhere. Through luck as much as skill the Freedom Fighters made it to the doors to the Control Room without setting off any alarms, but there their luck ended. There were no Mobian-sized air vents or maintenance tunnels into the control room, and the doors were guarded by a pair of Elite Swat-bots.

With no other choice, the Freedom Fighters engaged the Swat-bots in battle, quickly taking them down before they could sound the alarm. Nicole hacked the door and they headed in. The room was deserted, so Antoine hooked Nicole up to one of the terminals, and she began hacking into the system.

Moments later, the five remaining Chrono-bots appeared in flashes of blue light, with several weaponized Robians in tow: Mecha Bunnie, Mecha Rotor, and the roboticized Downunda Freedom Fighters. Simultaneously, a squad of Elite Com-bots de-cloaked around them. The Chrono-bots did not bother to gloat or to demand the Freedom Fighters' surrender; they simply sealed the doors, and ordered the Com-bots and Robians to attack.

Seeing their friends again and knowing they'd have to fight them was hard for Sonic, Tails, and Antoine, but they put their feelings aside and joined the fight. After their many fights, the team worked together like a well-oiled machine, and though it took some effort, they managed to disable the Robians and take out the Com-bots. But then the Chrono-bots stepped into the fight. Faster, stronger, and better armed than the Com-bots, they soon had the Freedom Fighters on the ropes. Worse, the Freedom Fighters could not retreat - not only were doors locked and too heavily armored for Sonic to cut through, but Nicole had confirmed that the Chrono-bots did in fact have the nuclear arsenal required carry out their plans of destroying the resistance and what was left of the ecosystem, and all indications were that they intended to go through with that plan.

Antoine ordered Nicole to take control of the nuclear arsenal, and the Freedom Fighters fought on. Working together, the Quacks were able to badly damage one of the Chrono-bots - but then the robot exploded, taking the three out with it. As Sonic stared in shock, another Chrono-bot hit him with a nanite-roboticizer dart. Even as metal plating began to spread over his body, Sonic fought the Chrono-bots with all his might, managing to take one more out and get out of range of it's self-destruction. However he then lost control of his body as the roboticization completed, and the last three Chrono-bots ordered him to kill Tails and Antoine.

Knowing Tails wasn't up to fighting Mecha Sonic, Antoine told him to defend Nicole, and took on Mecha Sonic himself.

When Antoine fell to a laser blast from Mecha Sonic, Tails knew it was all over. He ordered Nicole to detonate the rest of the city's arsenal of nuclear missiles in their silos. Nicole pointed out that the blast radius of the explosion would encompass the entire city, including the control center they were in. Tails said he knew that, and ordered her to do it anyway.

As soon as Nicole had acknowledged the command, blue electricity coalesced to a point and Chrono-nik appeared in blue fire and smoke. He berated the Chrono-bots for their failure, and said that in punishment they would die with the city. However, he would not be denied his prize from this exchange. Chrono-nik grabbed Mecha Sonic, and vanished with him.

Seconds later, the missiles exploded, and a huge fireball wiped the city and all within off the face of Mobius.

In the mountains north of the city, the light of the explosion could be seen well within New Knothole. Several people rushed out and witnessed the mushroom cloud rising over the crater where Robotropolis had once stood.

And so Sally and the other people of Knothole learned of Antoine's group's Pyrrhic victory.

Preparations had already begun to seal the village and Sanctuary against fallout; Sally ordered everything else put on hold and every effort put into completing the preparations as quickly as possible. There would be time enough for mourning and celebrating later, for now survival was their top priority.

STH * STH * STH

 _Servants of the Lord of Time_

Far to the north, in the ruins of the Overlander city of Megaopolis, blue lightning and smoke heralded the return of Chrono-nik, along with Mecha Sonic. Moments later, six more robots appeared: humanoid, bronze-colored robots designed like more bulky (and heavily armed) Swat-bots. Chrono-nik introduced them to Sonic as his current foot soldiers, the Eon-bots – robots as intelligent as any Mobian, and far more powerful than the old obsolete Chrono-bots.

Chrono-nik announced that Megaopolis was to be rebuilt into his new base of operations on this Mobius, "Chronopolis". The Eon-bots would be in charge of both the rebuilding and of completing the conquest of the planet and extermination of the life infesting it. Placing Sonic under their command, Chrono-nik departed to supervise other higher priority conquests.

The Eon-bots contacted what still survived of the Chrono-bot's troops and slaves, took command, and ordered slaves and troops sent to Megalopolis to begin rebuilding it.


	5. The End of the World

**Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Part V: The End of the World**

 _Out of the Silence_

Several days after the detonation of Robotropolis' nuclear arsenal, green energy sparked in the center of the flooded crater left by explosion, and a dimensional doorway opened. Ixis Naugus stepped through, and created a platform of crystal to stand on. He was followed shortly by his minions Lady Alice, Kodos, and Uma Arachnis.

Naugus determined that the crater was all that remained of the city once known as Mobotropolis. Kodos and Alice were quite upset by this revelation, but Naugus was just thankful that the device which Robotnik had been using to keep the Zone of Silence sealed had been destroyed, no matter what else had been destroyed with it.

Seeking the power to take control of the world, the four headed south. They made their way across Soumerca and the Southern Ocean, to the Southern Tundra.

Nestled in the mountains among the melting glaciers, they found an abandoned castle – the laboratory of the late Dr. Nathaniel Beauregard Morgan. Deep within the fortress Naugus found what he'd been seeking – a treasure trove containing thousands of Power Rings. Naugus gathered the Rings and absorbed their power, then used his new power to open a gateway to the Zone of Silence with the intent of merging both worlds so that he might gain the same control over Mobius as he had over the Zone.

However, before Naugus could complete the spell, there was a flash of blue light, and the Eon Bots appeared, along with Mecha Sonic. The Eon Bots engaged Naugus in battle, sending Mecha Sonic to take care of the sorcerer's minions. Despite being skilled fighters, Naugus' minions were outmatched against the heavily weaponized Mecha Sonic, so they transformed into more powerful bodies made of green crystal. This wasn't enough to turn the tides, and Sonic soon shattered Kodos (the most aggressive fighter of the three) followed shortly by Arachnis. Lady Alice was able to buy herself some time by fighting defensively, but it was clear to both her and Mecha Sonic that she had no chance of winning.

Meanwhile, the Eon Bots made use of stealth technology, teleportation, and sheer brute strength to overwhelm Naugus. The lead Eon Bot proclaimed that this world belonged to Chrono-nik, and for the crime of attempting to take it for himself Naugus had earned the punishment of death. Knowing he couldn't beat them even with a thousand Power Rings, Naugus tried to flee into the Zone of Silence; however before he could make it to the portal the Eon Bots all blasted him at the same time, and he was vaporized.

With her master dead, Lady Alice fell lifelessly to the floor like a puppet with its' strings cut. The portal to the Zone of Silence closed moments later.

Their mission complete, Sonic and the Eon Bots departed, leaving the lifeless Lady Alice and the remains of Kodos and Arachnis lying there in the bowels of Dr. Morgan's castle.

STH * STH * STH

 _Birth and Death_

Once Knothole was secured against the fallout from the destruction of Robotropolis, a memorial ceremony was held for Antoine, Tails, Sonic, and the Quack siblings, all of whom were presumed to have died defeating the Chrono-bots, as well as for all of the Robian slaves who had been in the city at the time. Sally also mourned the loss of Nicole, though to the end Sally had never been quite sure if Nicole had been sentient or merely possessing of a cleverly programmed AI.

A couple weeks later, Sally gave birth to a son. She named him Miles, after Tails' true name. (Officially, the child's full name was Prince Miles Antoine DeCoolette of the House of Acorn, but he was always simply Miles or Prince Miles to the people of Knothole.)

Soon, Sally sent out Robians and Mobians in protective gear to begin checking on the state of the outside world. The countryside around the Robotropolis crater was highly radioactive, but some life still clung on in the areas outside the blast radius, and luckily not enough material had been lifted into the atmosphere to create a nuclear winter; if anything the temperature was more comfortable now with the slight nuclear cooling counteracting some of the effects of global warming.

Unfortunately, when they ventured further afield, they learned that Chrono-nik's empire continued to function, now under the command of the Eon Bots.

And so, Sally took back active command of the Knothole Freedom Fighters, now consisting of herself, Amy Rose, and the Robians Rudyard and Fanny. The Freedom Fighters resumed their mission to free the planet, now focusing their efforts on stopping the Eon Bots and their construction of Chronopolis.

However, it soon became clear the rules had changed. The Eon Bots were not afraid to join the fight directly even to stop minor incursions into their city, and were more powerful than any robots the Freedom Fighters had fought before. They also began upgrading their troops, granting them weapons and other equipment as advanced as their own (though luckily due to lack of resources the new model Swat-bots and Com-bots were still not as heavily armed as the Eon Bots). Worst of all, they soon revealed that Sonic was still alive and now working for them as Mecha Sonic – and Mecha Sonic had been upgraded to be nearly as powerful as the Eon Bots.

Sally considered it a miracle they were even able to escape their early confrontations with Mecha Sonic and the Eon Bots alive, but making any headway against the Eon Bots' plans proved impossible.

And so, more years passed. The Eon Bots continued to pollute heavily, and while they never set off a nuclear holocaust, they did make heavy use of nuclear power, and then disposed of the waste in ways calculated to do the most harm to the environment. Meanwhile, the cooling caused by the destruction of Robotropolis faded, the planet continued to heat up, and the weather grew increasingly extreme.

STH * STH * STH

 _Circles_

By the year 3254, outside of the Sanctuaries the only remaining multi-cellular lifeforms on land were a few small well-hidden patches of the most tenacious plants (such as some grasses), the occasional patch of moss or lichen, and a few hardy insects and rodents; the situation in the ocean was similarly dire. Even these small patches of life only survived in places where the Eon Bots and their robotic slaves did not visit, for all of Chrono-nik's subjects had a standing order to eliminate any organic life they encountered.

In Knothole, Prince Miles was now ten years old, and training hard for the day he would be allowed to join the Freedom Fighters.

Meanwhile, working from equipment stolen from some of the Eon Bots' enhanced minions, Sally completed her greatest invention – a sentient handheld computer with similar capabilities and design to Nicole. Sally named it Nicole II. As she finished the device, she thought back on the mystery of the original Nicole's origins, and the thought occurred to her that if she could get her hands on a time machine she could send this Nicole back in time to her past self.

However, at the moment she didn't have access to a time machine, and she had other plans for Nicole II. All these years she'd been working on a way to free the Nanite-roboticized Robians, and she believed she was near success, but to override the Nanite control program she would need a dynamic program too advanced for a Mobian to write. Only a computer just as advanced as the Nanites could do it – which was where Nicole II came in...

A few weeks later, in the wasteland not far from the Robotropolis crater, a flash of lightning split the air, and the original mostly flesh-and-blood Robotnik appeared. The last thing he remembered was his renegade creation EVE blasting him with what he had assumed were laser beams. Considering the fact that he still lived, they must have been something more complex; apparently the fail-safes he'd built into EVE had prevented her from simply killing him.

Robotnik explored the wasteland he found himself in for a while, hoping to find out where he was and perhaps find a way back home. However, he hadn't been wandering around for more than a few minutes, when an Eon Bot appeared before him in a flash of blue light. Robotnik demanded to know where he was and who the robot served; it refused to explain anything, saying only that it had been ordered to return him to where he belonged. It placed it's hand on him, and with a quick application of temporal energy sent him back in time twenty years to Robotropolis not long after EVE had blasted him.

Its' mission complete, the Eon Bot returned to Chronopolis.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Gift of Freedom_

Finally, Sally and Nicole were able to write a free-will restoration program which would override the Nanites' control program. After testing it out successfully on a captured nanite-Robian, the Freedom Fighters staged a daring raid on Chronopolis with the intention of drawing Mecha Sonic out. The strategy succeeded, and during the battle the Freedom Fighters were able to subdue Sonic long enough for Nicole to inject the free-will program into Sonic's systems. Moments later, Sonic gained control of himself once more.

Sonic was still a little disorientated, but despite this the Freedom Fighters were able to escape with Sonic before the Eon Bots could catch them.

Back in Knothole, Sonic was wracked with guilt for everything he'd done under Chrono-nik's control, for while he had not been himself at the time, he could still remember everything. He was also quite depressed over the deaths of Tails, Antoine, Rotor, and Bunnie, and over the state the world was in now.

Sally and Amy did their best to cheer up Sonic. They reminded him that he was not in control when he did all those bad things, and pointed out that with the upgrades he'd been given over the years he might actually be able to do some damage to the Eon Bots' operations.

Over the next few weeks, the Freedom Fighters staged several raids on Chronopolis and other Eon Bot strongholds, spreading the free-will program to other nanite-Robians, and recruiting them to their cause.

STH * STH * STH

 _Systematic Slaughter_

About a month after Sonic was freed, a large squadron of robots led by the Eon Bots burst into New Knothole without warning. They did not explain how they had found the village, but went about mercilessly killing everyone and everything in their path.

Sonic attempted to hold off the Eon Bots while Sally organized a retreat, but while his enhancements allowed him to damage the Eon Bots he could not handle all six of them at once. Two of them kept him occupied, while the others slipped by and continued the slaughter. The Freedom Fighters fought back, but soon Amy, Rudyard, and Fanny had all been killed. With all other routes blocked, Sally attempted to lead the survivors down to the Sanctuary, but she was caught in an avalanche caused by a stray blast.

Meanwhile, the Eon Bots fighting Sonic overpowered him, damaging him so badly he could no longer fight – or even stand. Leaving him like that, they continued in to the caves to rejoin their teammates.

Sonic regained consciousness several hours later. His internal repair systems had kicked in, and weakly he climbed to his feet and made his way deeper into Knothole. The place was in ruins, and everyone he came across was dead. Smoke filled the caves, and when he reached the nature Sanctuary he discovered it had been burned, the fire killing everything that the Eon Bots had not killed first. The bodies of Miles and several free Robians lay in the Sanctuary; Sonic surmised they must have made their last stand there.

Not finding Sally's body anywhere, Sonic finally dug out the collapsed tunnel. He found Sally's body under the rubble, along with Nicole II. Sally was dead, but to his surprise Nicole was still functional despite a badly battered casing.

Sonic buried all of the dead, and took some time to mourn. He then headed out to try and hook up with some other resistance group in hopes he could be more helpful to them than he had been to the Freedom Fighters.

The first group Sonic tried to contact was the Rebel Underground, but they didn't respond to his attempts at communication, and when he went to their base he found all within it had been slaughtered like the citizens of Knothole, and their Sanctuary destroyed.

Sonic sought out other resistance groups, but again and again he found them to have been killed. Examining the destruction Sonic and Nicole determined that all of the destruction had occurred within a few hours of the attack on Knothole. Sonic now realized that the attack on Knothole had not been an isolated incident, but part of a larger campaign by the Eon Bots to wipe out all resistance.

As Sonic traversed the world searching for any resistance groups that might have survived, he encountered a number of black roughly saucer-shaped flying machines (they reminded him of an experimental weapon he'd helped the Wolf Pack to destroy back in 3234). They seemed to be systematically searching the land for something – and to his surprise they didn't even take notice of him.

Curious, Sonic had Nicole hack into one of the saucer's computer. She learned that it was a "Doomsday Pod", and that its' mission was to seek out and destroy any and all organic life-forms. Horrified, he had Nicole shut it down, then for good measure he used his built-in weapons to tear the machine to pieces. Unfortunately, he knew there were many more of them out there...

Sonic destroyed as many Pods as he could as he searched for any surviving resistance, or even any surviving life. However, he found no signs of life during this search; the Pods seemed to have found most of the surviving patches of plants and animals that had survived the Eon Bots' pollution and destroyed them. Furthermore, after several weeks of searching Sonic and Nicole determined that every resistance group Nicole knew of (which theoretically included every remaining organic Mobian, and every free Robian) had been discovered and destroyed, either by the Eon Bots themselves or by the Doomsday Pods.

It was entirely possible Sonic and Nicole were the last surviving sentient beings on the planet not under Chrono-nik's control.

STH * STH * STH

 _Machine Vs. Machine: Fighting Doomsday_

Hacking into the Eon Bots' computer network, Nicole determined that the Eon Bots had imported approximately 200 Doomsday Pods from Chrono-nik's Capitol world. Sonic now regretted the time he had wasted looking for other resistance groups, as there likely wasn't much life left with all of those Pods scouring the planet.

Sonic decided that in case there was any surviving life, the Doomsday Pods had to be destroyed. However, he couldn't do it alone. If he couldn't find a resistance group to join, he'd just have to make one himself.

And so, Sonic and Nicole used Nicole's free-will program to begin freeing Robians and Nanite-Robians, recruiting those they freed to the Resistance. Those who did not wish to fight were allowed to assist in other ways, while the bravest were allowed to join the latest incarnation of the Freedom Fighters.

The initial roster of the Mecha Freedom Fighters included Sonic, Sheldon Nerb, Mobie the Cave Bear, Predator Hawk, Flying Frog, Merlin Prower, and Nicolette "Nic" the Weasel. After expanding their recruiting to other continents they added to the team Big the Cat, Alan Quail, and Saffron Bee.

The Mecha Freedom Fighters had two goals: to locate and protect any surviving life, and to free as many Robians as possible. As part of their mission to save organic life, they also had a secondary goal: destroy as many Doomsday Pods as possible.

While the Doomsday Pods had been fairly formidable pieces of equipment in their day, compared to the technology the Eon Bots and Freedom Fighters were using they were antiques. Once all the Freedom Fighters had been upgraded with modern weapon systems, the team could take them down without too much difficulty; the challenge was in finding them.

As for saving the remaining life forms, in time the Freedom Fighters did find a few patches of plants and a few scattered animals that the Pods hadn't gotten to yet. What they could they gathered in a new Sanctuary which was equipped with shielding to protect it from the Doomsday Pods' sensors. Over the course of the next couple of years, they would destroy over a hundred of the Pods.

Meanwhile, the Eon Bots deemed their objectives of conquering and sterilizing the planet close enough to complete to begin their next project: to mine the planet for every usable resource, and ship it all to processing facilities in other Zones.

After two years, the Eon Bots determined the planet sufficiently sterilized, and shut down the remaining Doomsday Pods themselves. The Pods were brought in to a storage facility in case they were needed again. The Mecha Freedom Fighters decided they didn't want to risk the Pods being used again, and staged a daring attack on the facility. The Eon Bots tried to stop them, but the Freedom Fighters still managed to plant a number of explosives and get out alive. The explosives destroyed the entire facility and the Pods with it, though the Eon Bots escaped.

STH * STH * STH

 _Machine Vs Machine: Hope & Other Precious Resources_

The Mecha Freedom Fighters now shifted their focus to freeing other Robians, and interfering in the Eon Bots' mining operations as best they could.

Sonic spent much of his free time in research and study, still intent on building his own time machine to undo all the damage to the world. He found his computer brain picked up and retained information far better than his organic brain had; math also came naturally to him now. With the help of Nicole and some more scientifically inclined Robians, he continued his study of engineering, and also began to learn advanced physics.

Sonic also trained with Merlin Prower to learn the basics of magic.

As the years passed, the Eon Bots' mining projects added even more pollution to the ground and waters of the planet, while their factories continued to pump more pollution into the atmosphere and water. Global temperatures continued to climb, and the weather continued to grow more extreme. Even more troubling, the Eon Bots began to drain the planet's lakes and rivers and pump up vast quantities of ground water; some of this was used in their mining operations, but they also shipped vast quantities of water out of the Zone for use in various industrial applications across Chrono-nik's empire.

All of this made survival increasingly difficult for the patches of life that had survived the Doomsday Pods. It also made sustaining the Sanctuary more difficult for the resistance. All air going into the sanctuary had to be filtered for pollutants, and cooling units were required to keep the temperatures hospitable – and both air filters and cooling units required power. Furthermore, with the ground water gone, they were forced to either steal water from the Eon Bots' operations or distill water from the Oceans to provide for the Sanctuary; either way they needed to filter the water for pollutants as well.

Some resistance members began to question whether all this work was worth it; after all, the life they were trying so hard to sustain mostly amounted to some grasses, lichen, bugs and rodents. Sonic insisted however that all life was precious, even if it didn't look that impressive. He also made clear that he was not having them protect life just because it was the right thing to do; he still hoped to one day drive Chrono-nik from this world and make it green again.

The greatest threat to Sonic's plan of restoring the world was now the Eon Bots' water-collection operation; pollution could be removed or adapted to, but without water the planet was as good as dead. And so, at Sonic's insistence, the Freedom Fighters focused much of their efforts on shutting down the water collecting operation. Unfortunately, the Eon Bots had devoted so many resources to the operation that all the Freedom Fighters could do was slow the operation down.

STH * STH * STH

 _Machine vs. Machine: Breakdown_

By 3265 all the pockets of life outside the Sanctuary that the Freedom Fighters were aware of had died. However, the Freedom Fighters had managed to free several hundred Robians, and their own numbers had grown to over a dozen. And while they had not been able to land any decisive blows against the Eon Bots, they were growing much more effective at disrupting the Eon Bots' mining and water-collecting operations.

Concerned about the growing numbers and power of the resistance, the Eon Bots finally decided to get rid of their source of recruits. All Robians under their command were ordered round up and dismantled for recycling. The Freedom Fighters learned about this plan in time to infiltrate Chronopolis in an attempt to rescue as many as they could. However, the Eon Bots had anticipated this, and attacked the Freedom Fighters with a small army of advanced and heavily armed war robots, and also joined in the fight themselves.

The resistance was crushed. Sonic was once again so badly damaged he could not fight, while the rest of the Mecha Freedom Fighters were killed. The lead Eon Bot explained to Sonic that per Chrono-nik's orders he was to be allowed to live to witness the death and destruction of his planet, but resistance would no longer be tolerated. They then dumped Sonic's broken body in the middle of the wasteland to self-repair, while they went about cleaning up the remains of the Freedom Fighters, and completing their dismantling of the enslaved Robians.

The first thing Sonic did as soon as he was able to move again was to check on Nicole; unfortunately she had been smashed beyond repair. Sonic found himself wishing he'd left Nicole behind in the Sanctuary for once.

After his systems recovered enough, Sonic returned to the Sanctuary, He did his best to convince the remaining free Robians to help him create a new Freedom Fighter group, but knowing what they were up against, few were willing to actively fight the Eon Bots. In the end it proved a moot point, as within a week the Eon Bots tracked down the Sanctuary and the rest of the free Robians and attacked with an army of elite Com-bots and other war machines. With their backs against the wall the free Robians at last fought back, and Sonic fought to protect them, but it wasn't enough. Sonic was once more temporarily disabled, and the rest of the free Robians were killed. The life within the Sanctuary was also exterminated.

Sonic awoke to find himself alone in the remains of the Mecha Freedom Fighters' base, with no one and nothing left to fight for.

STH * STH * STH

 _Rebel Without a Cause_

Now at last Sonic gave in to despair for a time. However, he eventually remembered that there were countless other Zones out there, still full of life and people. There also might still be some small pockets of life out there on his Mobius that he and the Doomsday Pods missed. Finally between Chrono-nik's forces and the "Future Sonic" he had met decades ago he knew time travel was possible, so it might not be too late to undo all the destruction Chrono-nik and his minions had caused.

Seeking new allies and a world that didn't appear to be dead, Sonic attempted to escape the Zone. However Chrono-nik's forces had all of the Zone portals heavily guarded, and he couldn't make it through.

With little else to do, Sonic settled for sabotaging the Eon Bots' mining and shipping operations as much as possible, and working on his time travel theories in his spare time.

While Sonic no longer had Nicole to help him, he had learned a lot from her, not just about temporal mechanics but also about how to manipulate his nanites and how to use them to manipulate his own body. He stole equipment and robot parts from the Eon Bots, and studied their futuristic technology, using the knowledge he gained to transform himself into a powerful weapon, more destructive than any single Eon Bot (not taking into account their time travel abilities). He also upgraded his computer brain, enhancing his memory, processing speed, and over-all intelligence. And slowly, as the years passed, he began to get an idea as to how one might build a time machine.

In 3270, the Eon Bots began winding down their operations, dismantling most of their facilities and shipping the parts and most of their troops and other machinery through the Zone portals. By 3273, Chronopolis itself had mostly been dismantled, and all that remained of the mining and dismantling operations was one last large shipment of machinery, natural gas, and petroleum.

When the Eon Bots shipped the last of their armies through the portal first, Sonic knew it was an invitation for a final battle, one he had no intention of passing up.

Sonic raced into the city, blew up the fossil fuel containers (destroying much of the stored machinery and a good chunk of what was left of the city in the explosion and subsequent fires) before the Eon Bots could react, then engaged them in battle.

The ensuing battle was cataclysmic, tearing up the countryside and destroying what was left of Chronopolis. In the end Sonic stood badly damaged but triumphant.

But then, Chrono-nik arrived. He congratulated Sonic on destroying several of his foot-soldiers, and announced that as a reward Chrono-nik would allow Sonic to keep what was left of Mobius. However, he couldn't have Sonic running around causing him trouble, so he would be sealing all of the Zone portals to this world.

Sonic had put up a good fight, but in the end Chrono-nik had what he had always wanted the most – his revenge. And with that Chrono-nik departed, laughing maniacally as he faded away.

STH * STH * STH

 _Alone in the Wasteland_

Sonic raced to the nearest Zone portal as quickly as his damaged body could take him, but as Chrono-nik had said, it was closed, sealed beyond Sonic's ability to reopen. As soon as his body was repaired enough to fly, he headed to the other portals he knew about, but they too were sealed.

Sonic was disappointed but not surprised. However, he was not about to give in to despair again, for he had a plan. Utilizing what metal, electronics, and other resources he could scavenge (particularly from the ruins of Chronopolis, but there were also other scraps scattered around the world that the Eon Bots had not felt worth the effort to recover), and using his nanites to build and repair machinery that would normally require a factory to make, he built himself a laboratory, and began working on a prototype time machine.

His early tests proved quite ineffective, and even once he discovered how to open a temporal gate he found he couldn't alter history at first. It would be many decades before he was able to build a prototype which would serve his purposes.

In the mean time, Sonic explored the wilderness, cleaning up pollution where he could, and collecting various bits of "litter" which were now valuable resources, like old cans and plastic bags. In these explorations he finally found the life he had always believed still existed. Most of it was microscopic, but there were still a few bits of lichen and moss and even a few hardy insects in secluded areas of the temperate and arctic regions of the planet. Unfortunately, thanks to continued global warming, the tropical regions of the planet had become too hot for multi-cellular life to survive.

Sonic did his best to protect and nurture these small pockets of life, removing those pollutants he could from the environment around them, and protecting them from violent weather and other threats when he could (though there were limits to what he could do as he couldn't be everywhere at once).

Sonic had one particularly pleasant surprise when he entered the pocket-zone which had once contained the original Knothole. Very little pollution had made it into the Zone, and the little pocket of the Great Forest within was doing fairly well, a grove of healthy trees filling the former village, and some birds and other small animals still hanging on. Sonic vowed to do everything he could to protect this oasis, and if the world was ever safe for them, help the animals and plants to expand beyond old Knothole.

Finally, in 3323, Sonic completed testing of the final prototype time machine. Determining it a success, he incorporated it into his own body. Now he had a dilemma – he wanted to go back in time and undo all the damage that had been done to the planet, but while the planet was still on the edge of dying, he had reason to hope it might actually pull through.

He felt a little guilty about the animals and plants whose existence he'd be erasing (and even more guilty about those Mobian and Robian lives he'd be changing, but at least most of them ought to not only still exist but have a much better life in the new timeline), but his biggest concern was the fact that he had seen a version of himself attempt this before and apparently fail. What if he failed as well? There would be no one to help the world to recover, or to try to protect it from Chrono-nik if he ever returned.

And so, gathering together all the necessary components, he used his nanites to build an exact duplicate of himself, even copying his memories into the duplicate.

Leaving the ruined planet in his copy's hands, Sonic transformed himself to look organic (so as to not panic the people of the past) then headed back in time to 3235.


	6. Omnipotence

**Absolute Power**

 **by Chronos Cat**

 **Part VI: Omnipotence**

 _Recruiting_

In early 3235, the Freedom Fighters were making plans to rescue the King from the Zone of Silence, when in a blinding flash of blue-white light another Sonic appeared, one that looked to be an adult. He explained he was from a century in the future and was heading back to 3224 to prevent Robotnik's coup. He asked permission to clone Sally so he could bring the clone back with him to help in this mission.

The Freedom Fighters had a lot of questions, such as how Sonic had survived for a century, what had happened to his Sally, why he didn't just take them all back in time with him instead of cloning Sally, and how he planned on cloning her.

Future Sonic explained he had been roboticized some time ago but Sally had restored his free will. Unfortunately, Sally had been killed fighting Chrono-nik's minions not long after freeing him.

Future Sonic was still a robot, he just looked organic because he'd remodeled himself to look that way. His systems included a large number of nanites which were under his control; with them he could duplicate just about anything if he had the raw materials, which was how he planned on cloning Sally.

As for why he didn't want to take them back with him... Well, when he was fifteen he had met a version of himself who had been traveling back in time with the same plan. That version of Sonic had taken a clone of Sally back with him instead of the original Sally, and a good thing too, as they were never heard from again.

Future Sonic told them he had a bad feeling this was a suicide mission, and he was not going to risk making things worse by removing anyone who belonged in this era from it.

Taking everything into consideration, Sally agreed to the plan.

Future Sonic took Sally and the others out into the woods, then sent some of his nanites into Sally to record everything, including her mental patterns. Meanwhile, he sent more nanites into the dirt and leaf litter, and had them begin disassembling the minerals and organic matter and re-configuring them into an animal form, based on the information being sent by the nanites within Sally. Finally he pulled his nanites out of Sally, and started the clone's heart beating. The clone opened her eyes, and was shocked to discover she was the copy.

After adjusting to the idea of being a copy and the one to go on the mission, Clone Sally packed some supplies and said goodbye to everyone. Then Future Sonic took her hand, and the two disappeared in another flash of light.

STH * STH * STH

 _Fate_

On a hill overlooking Mobotropolis, in the year 3224, Future Sonic and Clone Sally appeared in a flash of blue light.

They had barely got their bearings, however, when blue electricity flashed before them, and in blue smoke and fire Chrono-nik appeared. He scolded them – did they really think they could change history without him noticing?

Sonic transformed into his fully upgraded Weapon Mecha Sonic form and told Sally to run and finish their mission while he held Chrono-nik off. As the two titans clashed, Sally realized she was out of her league, and ran faster than she ever thought she could. However, Chrono-nik spotted her running and blasted her with temporal energy.

Sally picked herself off the ground no worse for wear, but discovered that the landscape around her had been torn to bits (the hill they'd appeared on was completely gone), and there was no sign of Sonic or Chrono-nik. Worse, smoke was rising from Mobotropolis, and she could hear the sounds of battle.

Sally raced to the city, only to find Robotnik's troops in the process of occupying the city, most of the flesh-and-blood Mobian army already having fallen. Sally surmised that the blast she'd been hit with must have sent her forward in time to several hours after the start of the coup. She had no way to stop the coup now, but maybe it wasn't too late save her father (or rather, Sally's father).

Sneaking past the robots, she broke into the palace, to find the fighting there was already over. She continued to sneak through the Palace, hoping there was still something she could do to help.

She finally found Robotnik and King Acorn in Naugus' old quarters, where Robotnik had used Naugus' equipment to open a portal to the Zone of Silence. Robotnik was just about to toss the King into the Zone, when Sally burst in, fought the Swat-bots off with strength she was sure the original Sally had not possessed, and freed the King.

But then, blue electricity tore through the room, and Chrono-nik appeared. He gloated that he had killed the time-traveling Sonic, but for Sally he had a different punishment in mind – she would be allowed to spend the next decade or so with her father, in the Zone of Silence! With that he blasted both Sally and King Acorn through the portal.

Chrono-nik then turned to Robotnik and told him not to concern himself with any of this; Robotnik would understand it all long before any of it really mattered. Chrono-nik then disappeared in his usual explosive manner, leaving Robotnik scratching his head in confusion.

STH * STH * STH

 _A Journey in Silence_

King Acorn and Sally found themselves floating through the void in an uninhabited region of the Zone of Silence. Sally knew from her memories of the original Sally's trip to the Zone that it was possible to "walk" through space between the Zone's landmasses, but she had never mastered it. She began practicing moving through the void, and encouraged the King to do the same.

While they practiced Sally took the time to explain who she was and why she was there. King Acorn found it a little disturbing to find out that she was a clone of his daughter, and wasn't comfortable calling her Sally.

She hadn't really had much time to think upon her situation, but decided it wouldn't hurt to take a new name; after all she technically wasn't really the same individual as Princess Sally. Her first choice for a name was "Alicia", but King Acorn wasn't comfortable with that name either, as it was the name of his wife, missing and presumed dead after her transport was shot down during the Great War. In respect to King Acorn's wishes, she modified the name to "Alice."

Once they had mastered moving in the void, King Acorn and Alice began traveling through the Zone in search of a place where they could find food, water, and shelter.

They found enough food and water to survive as they explored (some of the chunks of rock floating in the void had fruit trees or pools of water, and they even found a river flowing through the open void), but finding shelter was more difficult.

Unfortunately, the Zone of Silence was a non-Euclidean space not entirely hospitable to life forms designed for regular space. Within a few days King Acorn and Alice began to suffer from nausea and the occasional headaches, and as the days passed the headaches became more severe and constant. After being in the zone for a little over two weeks, they found their thoughts confused, and their grasp on reality slipping. King Acorn blamed it on how quiet the Zone was (sounds rarely traveled more than a few yards through the void), but Alice didn't think that was it – after all, plenty of deaf people were perfectly sane.

Then finally, a few days later, they encountered someone else. By some strange coincidence, it was the Acorn Kingdom's former Warlord, Kodos. Upon seeing the King, Kodos attacked, clearly intent on killing him. Alice tried to help the King fight Kodos off, but Kodos had greater strength and combat experience, and he had a battle axe.

A few moments later the giant Feist appeared out of nowhere and broke up the battle with an energy blast from his eyes. He took the three of them prisoner, and escorted them back to his master, the ruler of the Zone, Ixus Naugus.

Naugus offered them a cure for the effects of the Zone on their minds and bodies. However, in return they would need to pledge fealty to him. Unable to stand the pain in his head, King Acorn knelt down before Naugus and pledged his loyalty to Naugus. In light of his new position, Naugus gave him a new name and title: Lord Max. He then used his magic to transform Max into living, mobile crystal, and grant him the ability to transform between that form and a form resembling his birth form (but adapted to better function within the Zone).

Seeing that Max was unharmed by the spell, Kodos and Alice reluctantly agreed to serve Naugus, and were transformed in the same way.

Unfortunately, they would soon learn that their vows to Naugus had been magically binding. If they did not obey his direct orders, or even thought about trying to harm him, they would suffer incredible mental and physical pain until they ceased their disobedience. Thankfully, Naugus preferred to delegate authority when possible, and even when he gave a direct order there was often a great deal of leeway as to how to interpret and carry out the command.

(Alice was also quite relieved when she realized that Naugus had no interest in physical relations or romance.)

STH * STH * STH

 _Lords of Silence_

Naugus appointed Lord Max administrator of one of the regions of his empire, in charge of maintaining the peace and expanding Naugus' territory (while Naugus considered himself ruler of the entire Zone of Silence, he had not yet secured his control over all of it). Some time after this he lost many of his memories from his life before entering the Zone; the official story was that he had suffered an injury in battle, but there were rumors that he had disobeyed Naugus so badly that the pain of the loyalty vow's punishment had damaged his mind. Either way, soon after this Max adopted a more aggressive style of rule, and began wearing an imposing suit of dark armor including a masked helmet.

Alice was placed in a lower-management position, where she quickly learned that controlling Naugus' lesser minions required a much firmer hand than Princess Sally had ever used as leader of the Freedom Fighters and head of the Knothole Council. She adapted to this challenge, however, adopting a firm-but-fair style that allowed her to keep her underlings under control without compromising her morals. To help intimidate her underlings, she began wearing black boots and gloves, and a black cape and mask, all with gold accents.

Alice rose through the ranks over the years, gaining the title "Lady" and control over her own region of the Zone. By 3234, ten years after she came to the Zone, she had become Naugus' second in command and sole adviser (not that he listened to even her advice all that often).

Meanwhile, Kodos rose to the position of Naugus' body guard, taking up the position alongside Naugus' existing bodyguard, the spider-ninja Uma Arachnis.

Then one day Lord Max reported that a group of Mobians had entered the Zone, set off a device which had created a self-sustaining vortex which was consuming everything around it, then escaped back to Mobius before he could stop them. From his description, Alice realized that it had been the Knothole Freedom Fighters, on their first trip to the Zone of Silence to attempt to rescue King Acorn. Thanks to Princess Sally's memories, she also knew they were planing to return to try again soon – though as she had been cloned while the second mission was still in the planning phase, she didn't know how it turned out.

Even though it had been a decade since she had thought of herself as "Sally", Alice still missed Knothole Village and the Freedom Fighters. Unfortunately her vow of loyalty to Naugus prevented her from running away back to Mobius. On the other hand, Naugus had never forbidden his administrators from undermining one another (in fact in-fighting was fairly common among his minions), and she soon developed a plan that she hoped would allow her to help her former allies.

Lady Alice headed to Lord Max's territory, officially to investigate the vortex and the Mobian intrusion. When the Freedom Fighters returned as expected, Alice took command of the fight against them, and deliberately ordered a battle plan she knew would be ineffective against them. She did nothing to prevent the Freedom Fighters from taking Lord Max captive, and as soon as she felt her forces had been beaten enough to make it believable, she retreated.

The Freedom Fighters activated their Neutralizer device, closing the vortex that was threatening the region, then departed back to Mobius with Max. Watching from a distance, Alice could only hope that they would be able to help Max recover his memories of being King Acorn and that when that happened he would become the man he had once been again.

STH * STH * STH

 _Beyond the Silence_

While Lady Alice's vow never enacted any punishment for her actions, Naugus was not happy to loose Lord Max, and saw to it she was punished in a different way. He demoted her, stripping her of her position as second in command and taking away much of her personal territory.

Over the next few years Alice worked hard to recover Naugus' trust and rebuild her territory; by 3239 she had been reinstated as his second-in-command.

In 3245, Naugus called Alice, Kodos, and Arachnis together and revealed that he had felt a change in the zonal-boundaries. For well over twenty years it had only been possible to open a portal between Mobius and the Zone of Silence from Mobius; however the barrier trapping them in this zone had fallen, and now he could open a portal to Mobius. He intended to do just that shortly, and he wanted the three of them to accompany him when he returned to Mobius.

Once Naugus had completed his mystical preparations, he opened the portal, and the four stepped through into a world unlike anything they had expected. Where Mobotropolis once stood there was a flooded crater. The ocean was higher than it ought to be, the land was a dead wasteland covered in ash, and they would eventually realize that most days were overcast despite it rarely raining.

Kodos and Alice were quite upset to discover that the city they had both once thought of as home had been destroyed (even if it had really been Sally, not Alice, who had lived there).

As there was nothing for them here, Naugus led them south, in search of an old acquaintance of his, Dr. Nate Morgan. The further they got from the crater the less devastated the land was; once they reached the continent of Soumerca they even found forests with living trees and animals, though there were still more dead trees than live ones, and most of the plants and animals were twisted and disfigured.

Kodos and Alice were horrified by all the death and destruction, and began to question if this world was even worth taking control of any more. Naugus insisted however that he would rule both Mobius and the Zone of Silence.

In the Southern Tundra they found Nate Morgan's castle. He turned out to be long dead, but he had left behind a treasure trove of Power Rings. Naugus began collecting them, intending to use their power to merge Mobius with the Zone of Silence; however before he could complete the spell there was a flash of blue light and seven robots appeared. Six were identical bronze-colored robots that appeared to be soldiers or knights; the seventh looked like a blue hedgehog and reminded Alice of Mecha Sonic (and to her astonishment the bronze robots even addressed him as such).

The bronze robots attacked Naugus, and ordered Mecha Sonic to take care of his minions. Mecha Sonic was fast, heavily armored, and armed with numerous powerful weapons systems. Alice, Kodos, and Arachnis were skilled fighters, but were no match for Mecha Sonic in their Mobian forms. Hoping to turn the tables on him, they changed to their more powerful crystal forms. However, this wasn't enough, and soon enough Mecha Sonic had shattered Kodos and Arachnis.

Alice knew she was next, and was mentally preparing herself for the end, when the bronze robots killed Naugus. And now the greatest disadvantage of her crystal form was revealed, for as Naugus died Alice felt all her energy leave her, and the world around her faded as all thought left her mind.

STH * STH * STH

 _Awakening_

The next thing Alice knew, she was lying on a table in some sort of high tech laboratory, her body flesh and blood and her mask removed. Standing over her was a blue mechanical hedgehog. His face looked like Sonic's, but his body was much smoother and sleeker than any Mecha Sonic she'd seen before.

The mechanical hedgehog introduced himself as Sonic and explained that she had laid as inert crystal for over a century; it was now 3363. A few years ago he had been exploring the Southern Tundra when he had discovered her crystallized body. His sensors had detected dormant magic and life energy within her, and he had realized that it might be possible to revive her. His knowledge of magic was limited however, so it had taken him years of research and experimentation before he had been able to figure out how to restore her to life.

Alice introduced herself, and thanked him for reviving her. She asked what the state of the world was, but Sonic asked to know first why she looked like Princess Sally. She explained that she was a clone of Sally, created by a time-traveling version of Sonic. This lead to more questions, and she found herself telling him much of her story.

When Alice had answered all of his questions, Sonic revealed that he too was a copy, created by the original Sonic before he headed back in time to clone Sally and attempt to prevent the coup. He had been thinking of himself as "Sonic" for decades, and had no intention of changing his name now, but said that if she wanted Alice could think of him as "Sonic II" or even "Sonic Jr.".

Sonic explained that the world had been devastated by Chrono-nik's minions, but after stealing most of the planet's resources for his inter-zonal empire, they had departed. Since then the original Sonic and later Sonic II had been doing everything they could to restore the planet. The original Sonic's primary focus had been on developing a time machine so he could replace this dark timeline with a better one – but when he had departed and the world had remained unchanged, Sonic II had resigned himself to restoring it the hard way, by helping the surviving life to reclaim the planet.

He was glad that Alice had survived the attempt to change history, even if his predecessor had not. However, he warned her that while life was slowly making a comeback, Mobius was still very much a devastated world comprised primarily of polluted wastelands.

STH * STH * STH

 _Immortal Guardians_

Over the next few days, Sonic showed Alice the new forest growing in and around the site of the original Knothole, as well as some other patches of life in the area. At first glance the new forest looked much like the Great Forest of old, but a more careful examination revealed the extremely limited biological diversity (one species of grass, two species of trees and a few weeds which had grown in Knothole, some Flickies, and some rats). The forest was also fairly small, and while the grass had expanded outwards a ways beyond the forest, one didn't have to travel far to reach the barren wasteland Sonic had warned about.

Unfortunately, no plants edible to Mobians had survived, and there weren't enough animals for Alice to survive for long on an all-meat diet. If she didn't want to starve to death, she'd either need to return to her crystal slumber for a few centuries, or accept roboticization. Sonic assured her that she would retain her free will, and once she learned to control her nanites she could choose any appearance she wanted, even one that looked like her organic self.

Alice thought it over for a little while, but she trusted Sonic, and at any rate it was no worse a risk or sacrifice than when she had accepted crystallization from Naugus. And so a few days after turning her from crystal to flesh and blood, Sonic sent roboticizer nanites into Alice's body and transformed her into a robot.

Over the next few months Alice followed Sonic around as he tended to the new ecosystems and worked on cleaning the environment of the worst of the pollutants. She assisted him in this work as best she could, and in her free time practiced controlling her nanites. By the end of the year she had learned to transform between her default mechanical form and one that appeared organic on the outside.

Sonic II and Alice both shared memories of the teenage Sonic the Hedgehog and Princess Sally's time in the Knothole Freedom Fighters, but their shared memories ended at the point where Alice had headed back in time, and both had changed a great deal from those versions of Sonic and Sally. Despite the common ground both found they needed to get to know the other almost from scratch, and at first there was quite a bit of friction between them. In particular, Alice had become rather aggressive and accustomed to getting her way with everyone besides Naugus, while after a century alone Sonic was not in the habit of answering to anyone; as a result of this even minor disagreements between them could lead to serious arguments. On the plus side, when they needed a break from one another, they had plenty of space to do so in.

Over time, however, they slowly learned how to get along, and eventually they became close friends.

Within a few years, Alice had learned enough of Sonic's restoration efforts to become an equal partner in the project. She also mastered her mechanical body, and the use of her nanites.

When Alice realized she was developing romantic feelings for Sonic II, she was a little conflicted about it. After all, they had both been created by the original Sonic, so didn't that make them technically siblings? On the other hand, they shared no DNA (when they even had DNA) and hadn't been raised together (in fact, neither of them had been raised at all), so logically their sharing a creator shouldn't matter.

It took Sonic a bit longer to realize he had fallen in love with Alice, but when he did he didn't hesitate to tell her. When Alice told him her concerns, he was surprised; he'd never thought of them as siblings. In fact, even though he knew he was a copy he'd never really thought of himself as a separate being from the original Sonic. And while Alice was definitely a different person from the Sally who saved Sonic from a life of robotic slavery, he still thought of Alice as a "version" of Sally, much like the alternate versions of himself Sonic had encountered on his trips through the Cosmic Interstate as a teen.

Also, with no other intelligent beings on the planet, it wasn't like they had to worry about what anybody else thought.

It took some time, but eventually Alice came to accept that it was okay for them to be in a relationship, and the two began to act romantically towards each other, even going on the occasional "date".

As they were both robots, the only way for them to reproduce was to deliberately build a "child"; however they were both more interested in fixing the world than raising robot children, so they put off reproducing indefinitely.

Years passed, then decades. In the early 3390s Alice decided she and Sonic ought to "officially" get married; Sonic thought this was pointless as they were already a committed couple, there was no organization to make it official, and no one to invite as guests. Finally in 3398 Alice convinced Sonic to humor her. They used their nanites to create a wedding dress for Alice and a tux for Sonic, and in the middle of the Knothole Zone recited their vows to one another.

The decades stretched into centuries, then the centuries into millennia. The surviving life spread out across the planet, evolving rapidly and taking many new forms as a new ecological balance took hold. Sonic and Alice changed as well, growing skilled in magic and even more skilled in using their nanites to manipulate their own bodies and the world around them.

Sonic and Alice developed many new technologies in their quest to restore the world. Perhaps most important, seeking to store the memories of thousands of years as well as their vast knowledge they developed a means of storing information within folds in subspace, the subspace tesseract.

By the early 8000s, Sonic and Sally had in many ways surpassed the Ancient Walkers of old in power – and didn't even know it.

STH * STH * STH

 _The Intruder_

In 8273, exactly five thousand years after Chrono-nik had sealed off the Zone Portals to his birth Zone, he returned to check in on Sonic and gloat some more. He was aghast to see the world green again (if not exactly lush), and Sonic living happily with a girl that bore a striking resemblance to Princess Sally.

He appeared before Sonic and Alice and informed them he had changed his mind. He wanted this world back, and this time he was going to make sure no life survived on it. But first, he felt like inflicting a little bit of pain on Sonic and his "girlfriend".

Chrono-nik summoned five of his most powerful robots, Omega-bots, and ordered them to kill Alice and disable Sonic. Sonic immediately assumed his robotic battle form, and Alice assumed a similar form. The ensuing battle looked very impressive, with lots of flashing lights and much damage to the landscape, but it lasted only a few minutes before the mangled remains of the Omega-bots lay at Sonic and Alice's feet. Communicating silently through sub-space, Sonic and Alice used their nanites to deactivate the Omega-bots' self-destruct feature, examined the bodies for any useful new tech, and then used some of the Omega-bots' parts to enhance their own bodies into even more powerful battle forms.

Chrono-nik was infuriated, and now attacked Sonic himself, with his full power. The power of hundreds of Chaos Emeralds, tens of thousands of Power Rings, and numerous other magical items ran through his wires, and he also had advanced technology taken from the future of many worlds. Even with their Omega-bot enhanced bodies, Sonic and Alice found themselves being badly beaten.

After toying with them for a little bit, Chrono-nik blasted Alice with a powerful energy ray, disintegrating her. Sonic pretended to be horrified, but he knew she was fine – everything that had been stored in her physical brain was backed up to her subspace mind, which was in turn linked to her nanites - and these days they always had many of their nanites spread out in the environment around them. In fact, within a few microseconds of Alice's body being destroyed, she had contacted Sonic through their subspace link with a new plan.

Seemingly infuriated, Sonic launched a new attack on Chrono-nik, using all of the weapons and magic at his disposal. It wasn't enough to cause any significant damage to Chrono-nik, but predictably Chrono-nik continued to go easy on Sonic, as he still wasn't tired of tormenting Sonic.

Meanwhile, Alice's nanites infiltrated Chrono-nik's body. She had suspected he might have overlooked this avenue of attack, but she was still surprised by just how weak his microscopic defenses were. He did have his own nanites, but they were little changed from the ones the Chrono-bots had brought with them all those centuries ago, and Alice's nanites were easily able to destroy them.

Even as Sonic and Chrono-nik continued to fight, Alice's nanites spread through Chrono-nik, copying all his design information and even copying the data stored in his brain. Once she had all the information she wanted, she simply had her nanites dismantle Chrono-nik.

Chrono-nik barely had a moment to realize something had gone horribly wrong before all that was left of him was a pile of spare parts and a burst of magical energy which Sonic and Alice quickly contained before it could cause any damage.

Unfortunately, examining the information they had gathered from Chrono-nik they learned that the robot they had just defeated was just one of many copies the original Chrono-nik had created. Chrono-nik Prime still ruled his inter-zonal empire from a far-off Zone, and would doubtless soon realize his minion was not coming back and send more troops to investigate.

If they were ever to have peace, they would have to deal with Chrono-nik Prime once and for all.

STH * STH * STH

 _War of the Gods_

Between the Omega Bots and Chrono-nik, there were a lot of spare parts lying around, and Sonic and Alice knew they had a tough fight ahead of them, so they each built multiple bodies from the parts.

With the power and knowledge they had gained from Chrono-nik, Sonic and Alice re-opened the Zone Portals, then they headed out onto the Cosmic Interstate, leaving one of each of them behind to guard their Mobius.

Investigating the situation, they soon discovered that Chrono-nik had already taken control of several hundred worlds. To save time, the Sonics and Alices split up, each one taking an individual world. As they found the resources, each of them made more copies, further increasing their numbers.

In each world, they teamed up with any resistance they could find, and did their best to bring things to a swift conclusion. Early on, this was fairly simple, as their nanite dis-assembly trick was amazingly effective against enemy robots. However, Chrono-nik soon caught on to what was going on, and not only sent in troops to deal with the Sonics and Alices, but also began upgrading his nanite defenses.

Soon Sonic and Alice found themselves fighting against Chrono-nik copies. Many of Sonic and Alice's bodies were destroyed in these confrontations, but the remaining Sonics and Alices gathered up Chaos Emeralds, Power Rings, and other sources of power, and also adapted to the new threats using a system of nanite-based technological development with more in common with mutation and natural selection than targeted research and development.

Within a matter of weeks, there were over a hundred Sonic and Alice copies, each of which had developed in their own direction, and Chrono-nik's empire had been halved.

As the Sonic and Alice army and their allies pushed on deeper into Chrono-nik's empire, the disparate groups met up once more. The Mecha Sonics and Mecha Alices shared their technological advancements with one another, and all grew more powerful in the exchange. As the number of universes left to free dwindled, and Chrono-nik strengthened his defenses around the core Zones, many of the Mecha Sonics merged with one another, to consolidate their Chaos Energy reserves; many Mecha Alices merged with one another as well.

When only a handful of Zones remained under Chrono-nik's control Chrono-nik Prime at last emerged to do battle. He gathered all his copies to himself and absorbed their power, transforming himself into a being more powerful than any seen in recorded inter-zonal history. Undeterred, Sonic and Alice's alliance engaged him and his army in battle.

For days the two armies fought, decimating many Mobiuses and the "roadway" of the Cosmic Interstate itself. Most of Sonic and Alice's allies were killed, and all of Chrono-nik's army destroyed, but still Chrono-nik fought on. Chrono-nik possessed a super-advanced super-computer for a brain, and could use his time manipulation abilities to speed his thought processes to incredible rates; combined with his nanite-based ability to repair and reconfigure his body at will, he could grow more powerful and technologically advanced even as he fought.

While Sonic and Alice could advance themselves similarly, they could not do so at the same rate; instead all of the compatible versions of themselves merged back together into a super powerful Mecha Sonic and Mecha Alice.

The powers involved in the battle increased exponentially when Chrono-nik discovered a means to draw upon the very cosmic energy which created and sustained Zones, draining all the remaining worlds under his control dry (including his capitol world) in order to become a new order of being. The Zones he drained lost all reality, reverting back to unrealized possibilities.

Sonic and Alice were advanced enough by this point to see what he'd done; reluctantly they reproduced the ability, though they chose to partially drain a greater number of worlds rather than destroying any completely. Worried what the loss of energy might do to their already weakened Mobius, and not wanting to involve the versions of themselves left at home in the battle, they chose not to drain their home Zone. However, even without it they were able to gather more than enough energy to transform into "Cosmic Sonic" and "Cosmic Alice".

And so a contest of cosmic powers began which shook the foundations of the multiverse. In the end, Chrono-nik won this contest, taking control of all the Zones Sonic and Alice had linked to, and draining both the Zones and Sonic and Alice themselves of all Cosmic Energy. Drained even of the energy inherent in all material objects, Cosmic Sonic and Cosmic Alice ceased to exist.

However, Chrono-nik had underestimated just how much power Sonic, Alice, and the worlds they had linked to had possessed. His current body had been designed to contain and control a certain amount of Cosmic energy, but in his greed he had taken in far more power than his body could contain. Realizing his mistake as the energy began to overload his systems, he desperately tried to reconfigure his body, but it was too late. His Cosmic containment systems failed, and for a fraction of a second his body shone like a star, before it was consumed entirely as the energy escaped outwards, erasing Chrono-nik from existence in the process.

As the wave of energy spread outward, it ignited countless pockets of possibility, causing them to become new Zones. Most of the Zones that Chrono-nik had destroyed were reborn, though they started anew with no trace of Chrono-nik's interference. Only in his original home world, the home world of Sonic and Alice, did Chrono-nik's influence remain.

STH * STH * STH

 _Epilogue_

As the "army" of Mecha Sonics and Mecha Alices had traveled the Cosmic Interstate and waged war against Chrono-nik, they had maintained communication with the versions of themselves left behind on their home Mobius, appraising them both of the state of the conflict and of the new technological advancements they were making.

When the messages home stopped, the Sonic and Alice left behind knew something had gone badly wrong – and as the last message had been during the final battle with Chrono-nik, they suspected the worst. Needing to know for sure, they created new copies of themselves, and sent them out onto the Cosmic Interstate to investigate. The scouts discovered the multiverse in the process of healing, with no trace left of Chrono-nik save that which remained in their own world's history. Unfortunately, the versions of themselves who had battled Chrono-nik were gone as well.

While Sonic and Alice felt bad for the versions of them who had died, they took consolation in the fact that most of their memories would live on within the surviving Sonics and Alices.

With Chrono-nik's empire destroyed, and the technological knowledge now in their possession, Sonic and Alice realized they could likely go back and remove Chrono-nik and the changes he caused from the history of their world. However, this would be dangerous – Chrono-nik still existed in those points in time where he visited their world, and his protection from changes to history did not mean he was unable to react to those changes if necessary. If they disturbed one of these "remnants" of Chrono-nik and failed to capture or destroy him, he might escape and cause more trouble down the line.

Furthermore, Sonic had begun to question the morality of changing history even before the first version of him had gone back in time to do just that, and in the following millennia he had only grown more uncomfortable with the idea of rewriting history to his own preferences. The world was slowly but surely recovering from the damage done to it, and Sonic didn't feel they had the right to erase the world as it was now just because they had the power to replace it with a world they considered "better".

Alice felt that they were already influencing the world by helping it recover, and that choosing not to change history still counted as choosing one version of the world over another. Despite this, she agreed not to change history, on the condition that they put in place various precautions and contingencies in case any of the remnants of Chrono-nik should become aware that his empire had fallen, and seek to reshape history again or rebuild his empire.

While one version of Sonic and Alice remained on Mobius as it's guardians, the versions who had been sent out as scouts explored the Cosmic Interstate, learning about the various worlds and keeping an eye on the reborn worlds' recovery. In their explorations they discovered several worlds very similar to their home world except that Chrono-nik had never interfered in them; in more than one Robotnik had been defeated in 3235, leading to a long era of peace. While it didn't change their regret over the terrible things that had happened in their home Zone, both sets of Sonics and Alices took comfort in the knowledge that at least in some worlds the Freedom Fighters had gotten their happy ending.

In time the Zone-traveling Sonic and Alice would dedicate themselves to protecting the Cosmic Interstate and the Zones within it from future Inter-Zonal threats. To aid in this task, they gathered allies from various worlds. Initially an informal group, this inter-zonal peace-keeping force would eventually become an organized police force, known as the Zone Police.

Meanwhile, with the Zone portals now open, Sonic and Alice were able to gather animals and plants from other versions of Mobius and bring them back to their home world to rebuild the planet's diversity. The versions of them living on Mobius also built space ships and mined ice from the solar system's uninhabited planets, moons, asteroids, and particularly comets, using it to replace the water Chrono-nik's forces had stolen. And so as the centuries passed the planet grew more green and full of life, until in many ways it resembled the world it had once been again - though to those who knew where to look, the landscape still bore many scars.

The Zone Guardian versions of Sonic and Alice led the Zone Police for several thousand years, but it was not a job they wished to do for all Eternity. Eventually they decided that they had done enough and that the Zone Police could handle things without them. The retired from the Police, and returned to their home world, where they merged with the versions of themselves living there.

Sonic and Alice would continue to protect and guide their world together for as long at the planet and its Zone lasted.

THE END

* * *

 **Afterwords: Story Evolution**

While for the most part the changes made in this version were purely a matter of expression, I have made a few plot-related changes where I felt the original version didn't work. Below is a summary of the biggest changes.

In the original 1998 version, Chrono-nik undid Knuckles' disintegration at the hands of Enerjak, and freed Sonic and Tails from the zone Master Mogul banished them to. Sonic and Tails were with the Freedom Fighters when they discovered the ruin of Knothole and went to Robotropolis to rescue the survivors. However, in that battle, the Chrono-bots blasted Sonic and Tails a decade into the future. Later, it was Knuckles who was in the Chaos Chamber when the Chrono-bot blew up and took the Chaos Emerald with him, killing Knuckles and dooming the Island.

In the final battle with the Chrono-bots, the newly roboticized Mecha Sonic killed Tails himself, while Antoine was the one to detonate the nukes and blow up the city. Chrono-nik not only saved Mecha Sonic, but also Antoine and Mecha Bunnie, just so Mecha Bunnie could kill Antoine. Mecha Bunnie presumably was placed under the direction of the Eon Bots along with Mecha Sonic, but she was never mentioned again.

Sally survived the fall of New Knothole, and she and Sonic spent an unspecified amount of time together before she was killed on a mission; only after this did it occur to Sonic to free other Robians to form a new resistance.

When Sonic and copy Sally went back in time, they were successful in preventing Robotnik's coup, but this merely split the timeline in two; the copy Sonic continued to live on and guide the recovery of the ecosystem alone for thousands of years until the Chrono-nik copy showed up to torment him. He fought both versions of Chrono-nik alone (save for the army of copies he eventually re-absorbed), then went on to become the solitary defender of the Cosmic Interstate.

In the 1999 revision, when Sonic and copy Sally went back to the past, Chrono-nik killed Sonic and banished copy Sally to the Zone of Silence (as in this version). When Copy Sally pledged her loyalty to Naugus, Naugus took her as his wife. After Naugus was killed in the battle with Mecha Sonic and the Eon Bots, Sally lay buried beneath the tundra in crystal form for several million years, before Sonic discovered her and decrystalized her (long after his final battle with Chrono-nik). Sally learned that the nanites made her immortal (even without being a robot), and she and Sonic lived happily ever after as the guardians of their Mobius.


End file.
